Invisible Children

 “They came in the night,” she said. “We knew the knock as soon as we heard it. We knew we were helpless at that moment and we were going to have to go with them. They grabbed my brothers by the arm and chained my parents outside in the back of our home. When I heard the two gunshots following my brothers wailing, I knew what had happened—they made them kill my parents. They abducted me and told me I was going to be a commander’s wife and I was responsible to satisfying him. He was 63, I was 11. I screamed and cried every night but no one heard me. There was always the thought of escaping, but everyone knew it would be triple the horror to escape and be caught. A boy from my village tried it once and when he was caught, as punishment for trying to get away, they made the other boys kill him with sticks. And then they made them smear the boy’s blood on their faces as a reminder not to run away. The other boys were his friends, but they too would be killed if they didn’t kill him. I became pregnant with the commander’s baby, but even being pregnant didn’t stop them from making us walk hundreds of miles, days and nights without water or food. I wanted to die. But something in me wanted to fight, something in me said I have to keep moving. God had a plan for me, and it was to live.” –as told by a Ugandan woman previously abducted by Joseph Kony and the LRA

This is the short story of a young woman who was a previous child solider in the Lord’s Resistance Army. Gulu, northern Uganda is where this took place from 1986-2006. I spent this past weekend in Gulu visiting different NGOs and getting the opportunity to hear the stories of some of the women who were abducted. Uganda declared peace in 2006 with the LRA, but the leader (Joseph Kony) is still abducting children in the Congo. Uganda knows the war isn’t over, and there is a possibility he will return to Gulu—the place he started.

Kony would target children ages 11-14 and abduct them from their homes in the middle of the night. He would turn the boys into child soldiers, often making them kill their own family to psychologically destroy them and also not give them any reason to return home. The girls were used as sex slaves for the commanders in the army. They were forced to be wives and bear children of rape.  At the project I visited, there were five women who shared their stories—all of whom were in slavery for 7-10 years. They have been working at this organization called Amani for the past 8 years to try and reintegrate into society. With no family, children of rape, and intense trauma, they face battles every day I will never even come close to understanding.

Hearing this story in person from a woman with wet tears and gasping sobs, made everything I had ever learned about trauma come to life. Everything from the Kony 2012 movement and the LRA, it just became real. As tears rolled down my face, I thought about how shielded I was about what really goes on in the world. It’s not that I believed atrocities didn’t happen, but I live in a bubble. It has just been about donating money to help, to make oneself feel better about themselves. It was about gaining knowledge to engage in political conversations, but not about living a compassionate lifestyle. It was never about the people. Because the people were “out there” or “over there”. They were invisible. Yes, people mattered, but they were too far away to really care. But when I was able to hear a real story of a real person, it suddenly became about the people. Those “invisible children” became visible. And once they are visible and they look you straight in the face, you will never forget those eyes. Because those eyes are the surface of a human soul, no different than mine or yours, worthy of time and resources, and seeking for the same longing every human being has had since the beginning of time: to be unconditionally accepted and loved.