Citation

Gustavsson M, Oruut J, Rubenson B. Child. Geogr. 2017; 15(6): 690-702.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/14733285.2017.1300233

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

For this study the narratives of 16 young women who had served as child soldiers with the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda were collected. They had spent between 2 months and 16 years in captivity before managing to escape. All of them spent time at the Gulu Support the Children Organization Rehabilitation centre, from which 12 had moved back into their communities. The narratives start with their capture, the time with the LRA, the escape and the returning and reintegrating. Even though the narratives included appalling stories about the time in captivity, the participants expressed hope for the future and focused on giving their children a good start in life. We used Antonovsky's theories about 'sense of coherence' coupled with resilience theory to discern the factors that helped these young women cope. The participants all managed to leave captivity. We have no comparative information about those who are still in captivity.

Language: en

Keywords

forced marriage; girl child soldiers; LRA-abduction; Resilience; sense of coherence; Uganda