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• 1 2020-09-15T16:34:47-04:00 Justice for Survivors 19 Page: contains a discussion of the News Media Analysis theme "Justice for Survivors" plain 2021-09-21T16:05:17-04:00 Sarah York-Bertram, Andrea González , Zhi Ming Sim

  
  Acan’s and Amony’s experiences as girls caught between rebel and state forces informs their perspective on war. As Amony stated in her presentation at the University of Manitoba (2019):

  I was abducted by [the] Lord Resistance Army [LRA] when I was twelve years old. [The] LRA is a group of rebels that are fighting against the Uganda government [...] The LRA rebels took me to South Sudan [...]. Before I was abducted I was living with my parents [...]. I was separated from my parents from 1994 until 2005. Then I got a chance to escape from the LRA. When I returned I wasn’t in a position to talk about what happened to me because I was so sad from being taken as a child and being raped. [...] But after writing [my] book I got courage[.] The reason I am here today is because, in 2005, when I entered an ambush, I survived death by 12 bullets. I was shot [by the Uganda Peoples' Defence Force] and my skirt has holes. I brought that skirt here to the museum. [...] [I]n 2004, when different countries united with the Ugandan government, they went to fight the LRA. That’s when I lost my daughter and after that I don’t know where she is, I am still looking for her. [W]e are advocating for justice for women and we have to make the world know that war is dangerous. Our interest is that war should be stopped, abductions of young children should be stopped, and war must stop with us. 

  Sexual violence and conjugal slavery remain neglected parts of armed conflict and there continues to be barriers for justice for survivors. Even though survivors’ experiences of abduction and captivity are different and unique, they also share similar experiences—such as social stigma and rejection upon their return.  As Acan explained in her presentation at the University of Manitoba (2019): 

  [...] things like rejection by family members, rejection of their children, some [survivors] were stigmatized, there were challenges educating children born of war and the major thing was that many of the mothers who returned, many of those— the women who were abducted as girls, returned as women and they have not completed their studies, so they have challenges in just getting a means of livelihood. So those were the challenges we discovered [...] 

  In Acan’s and Amony’s statements to the news media, their message goes far beyond advocating for justice and reparations. They argue for sustained movements for peace and the abolition of war. The instrumentalization of women and girls in armed conflict has been an important tactic used to sustain social reproduction within the LRA and to push the LRA message (Bitu Tshikudi, 2019). In there conversations with news media, both Acan and Amony explain how they were mistreated and revictimized by the Ugandan government through its amnesty mechanism. In a CBC Day 6 (2019) piece, the article states:

  “The [amnesty] card is meted out to LRA fighters who are forgiven for fighting against the government of Uganda. It’s hard to see what exactly she’s being forgiven for, Amony said. ‘It [was] not our will to be in the bush,’ Amony clarified. And Acan stated that, ‘My life was destroyed. I didn’t hold a gun against the government, so why should I sign that I fought against the government?’ [...] ‘There was no government to protect me, to bring me back’” (2019).

  While justice is an important area of focus for survivors, Ugandan news media did not engage with themes surrounding amnesty and other barriers to justice. Instead, they focused on other urgent issues that speak to Acan’s and Amony’s message - that is, the healing that needs to be fostered in their local, regional, and national contexts. For Acan and Amony, their messages in Ugandan news media are directed to other survivors of war who are struggling in silence.