This page is referenced by:

• 1 2020-09-14T14:14:00-04:00 Affected Communities 40 Page: beginning of the Path through perspectives of Affected Communities plain 2022-04-30T16:55:27-04:00 Zhi Ming Sim; Sarah York-Bertram

   

  The impacts of conjugal slavery in war are intersectional, intergenerational and international. Grace Acan’s and Evelyn Amony’s stories resonate across communities impacted by war. The exhibit and Acan's and Amony's storytelling open up spaces for dialogues among survivors and their impacted communities. Audience members of the traveling exhibit are also survivors of war and come from communities affected by armed conflict and abduction. 
  
  In Canada survivors of war and refugees also make up the exhibit's audience. At the University of Manitoba, audience members from Nigeria discussed the Chibok girls abducted from school in northern Nigeria. “I am actually Nigerian, and I quite relate with everything you ladies have said today,” one person said. They went on to make a comparison between the Lord's Resistance Army and Boko Haram. Though the audience member was not “in the centre of” Boko Haram’s abduction of hundreds of girls in 2014, they reflect that “when I heard that story I was scared [...] I was scared” and it was “out of fear” that the they “actually moved out of Nigeria with my kids.” That audience member also reflected on the continued silence surrounding abducted girls in Nigeria, stating: "I quite appreciate the fact that you are telling your stories, it is so important that this story be told...for me, seeing you talking about your stories, even making something positive our of the negativity, it encourages me..." 
  
  Affected communities who see the exhibit, hear Acan and Amony’s stories, and participate in community dialogues, show a vast capacity for solidarity. As Gilbert Nuwagira from the Refugee Law Project reflects, “stories like these allow communities to collectively reflect on the past, to discuss present situations, and to be energized to face the future.”

  “It has been a very good exhibition, and I wish you should continue to encourage these affected war victims so that they forget the past and look forward for new development and change in their lives.” - Consy Ogwal, Grace Acan's mother, at the Uganda National Museum, 2019.

  
  Spaces for intergenerational healing expand as Acan's and Amony’s stories travel. Consy Ogwal, Acan’s mother, worked with the Concerned Parents Association for the release of children abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army. Ogwal also helped her daughter with childcare when she returned from captivity. Her mother's support gave Acan the time to complete her studies, engage with formal reconciliation processes, and write her memoir.

  Consy Ogwal reflects that:

  “As parents, when our children tell their stories during captivity it settles our hearts and we are sure our children are healing. It is also an encouragement for others to disclose." (6 December 2019, Uganda National Museum)

  
  Evelyn Amony’s grandmother also supports her storytelling and is an important part of the development of the exhibit. She lent the Canadian Museum for Human Rights the featured green skirt. 
  
  
  
  The traveling exhibit and community dialogues support families to share how war has impacted them. In Kampala, at the Uganda National Museum, Evelyn Amony’s father Ohobo Marcelino reflected that:

  “I suffered terribly and even my child suffered in the bush and experienced several challenges. I thank God the Almighty for once again giving her the chance to re-unite with us.”

  
  Amony's father also expressed appreciation for organizations and individuals who have supported his daughter's efforts to care for children whose parents did not survive the war in northern Uganda.
  
  Community dialogues show the ongoing intergenerational impacts of conflict. Relationships between parents, children and their families are important sites for repair and healing. CSiW partner Juliet Adoch facilitated community dialogues in Uganda. She writes about the difficulties women-returnees and their children face in the Ugandan context: 

  When they return from captivity, mothers and children born in war deal with rejection from their families. [...] One’s paternity comes with one being able to identify with a clan, family, as well as inheritance in terms of land, which is the main source of livelihood. When one doesn’t know their paternal identity, they struggle with belonging. That is why strong relationships between mothers and children [...] is so important. [...] For most formerly abducted persons, marriage and acceptance is a huge challenge that they face daily. This includes having to deal with the unequal treatment of their children born in marriage following their return and the children born in war that they returned with. Children notice preferential treatment and it impacts how they view themselves. The exhibition created a space for a dialogue beyond the visual that was on display[.] [...] It also brought recognition to issues beyond the exhibit, like parenting children born in war.

  Read more of Adoch's reflection here.
  
  Due to the stigma survivors face and the trauma they endure, memorializing the impacts of war is challenging. However, the gap in the historical record obscures the reality survivors, their children, families, and communities face. During a community dialogue in Kitgum, northern Uganda, Evelyn Amony expressed her view that:

   “Our children should learn this history, not from afar but from close-by”, from us. (National Memory and Peace Documentation Center, 2019. As quoted by Dr. Annie Bunting, "'Ododo Wa' African Launch, Uganda")

  
  
  
  Grace Acan also noted the importance of telling young people about the impacts of war:

  “We cannot die with these stories.” The younger generation “must know the problems and avoid violence. The guns are silent but the impacts are still very present.”  (National Memory and Peace Documentation Center, 2019. As quoted by Dr. Annie Bunting, "'Ododo Wa' African Launch, Uganda")

  These intergenerational and transnational conversations show the ongoing impacts of conflict and forced marriage.
  
  
  Sources:
  Quotes featured on this page are drawn from:

  • A YouTube video titled “Advocating for Justice and Reparations in Uganda” posted by Robson Hall at the University of Manitoba. For transcripts of this video, please send your request to csiwproj@yorku.ca.
  • Gilbert Nuwagira’s 10 April 2020 Active History post titled “Resuscitating Stories: Some reflection on the ‘Ododo Wa’ exhibit and experience.” 
  • Written guestbook comments by Grace Acan’s mother Consy Ogwul and Evelyn Amony’s father Ohobo Marcelino from the Uganda National Museum event of 6 December 2019. Thank you to Grace Acan and Evelyn Amony for securing their parents’ permission to reproduce the comments for this project. And thank you to Grace Acan for providing translation. 
  • Juliet Adoch's "A Project Partner's Reflection"
  • Dr. Annie Bunting’s post “‘Ododo Wa’ African Launch, Uganda”
• 1 2021-06-06T17:49:06-04:00 Symbols of belonging 8 Page: Continues themes identified in The Public's perspectives path plain 2022-05-02T18:16:58-04:00

  “It belongs to the people later.” (Participant, UNM Participant Discussion, 2019)

  "Our Sisters" 
  When the exhibit launched in Uganda, the audience discussed how "it belongs to the people" and "tells the story […] to the generations to come." In the Ugandan context, the exhibit encourages reflection on those caught up in the conflict and those who felt distant from it. In those dialogues, nation and kin are central to questions about overcoming hardship and trauma.
  
  In Uganda, some audience members referred to Acan and Amony as "our sisters." Such comments reflect the importance of belonging and kinship in the exhibit's Ugandan reception.  

  “I was interested in the skirt. [...] [I]t tells the story [...] to the generations to come [...]  in the next fifty, hundred years. [...] [I]s that same skirt [going] to come back [to Uganda]?” (Participant, UNM Participant Discussion, 2019)

  Artefacts
  Questions about artefacts featured in the exhibit, and whether they would return to Uganda, also demonstrate how the exhibit spoke to the political and social climate in Uganda. The political will to address survivors' needs has waxed and waned over time. Yet reparations are urgently needed. The audience in Uganda pointed to artefacts, such as Amony’s green skirt and the grinding stone, as national symbols of survival and hardship in war.
  
  These responses to the artefacts, their meaning, and Acan's and Amony's stories, led to reflections about representation, belonging, and the need to support other survivors' storytelling.