State Minister for Northern Uganda Grace Freedom Kwiyucwiny (R) greets a boy born in the LRA captivity at a rehabilitation center in Gulu City on December 30 2023. All Photos By Brian Komakech
By Brian Komakech
Gulu
The government is planning to launch a special program to register children born in Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) captivity for National Identification Cards (IDs).
Grace Freedom Kwiyucwiny, State Minister for Northern Uganda Rehabilitation said the special consideration is in response to complaints raised by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) returnees on their inability to register for the national IDs.
According to the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA), a child eligible for National ID registration must present a copy of their parents’ National IDs and a copy of their birth certificate, among other requirements.
Kwiyucwiny, however, said the majority of the children who returned from LRA captivity faced rejection from their families or relatives and, hence, couldn’t register as citizens of this country.
She said the government through the Ministry of Internal Affairs has already taken the concerns seriously, and is designing special ways to enable the returnees to get their national IDs and be identified as Ugandans.
According to Kwiyucwiny, the program will also help put an end to the issue of boys who have lost their ways because they were not accepted in our society.
“They could not be registered to get identification cards because nobody claimed or took responsibility to be their parents,” Kwiyucwiny said.
“And on the form, there is space for parents, the Ministry of Internal Affairs has taken that seriously and will design ways of ensuring that these people who are parentless should also be identified as Ugandans,” She said recently in Gulu City while receiving LRA returnees repatriated from the Central African Republic (CAR).
Over 1600 returnees without ID’s
Stella Lanam, the Executive Director of War Victims and Children’s Networking (WVCN), revealed that at least 1,650 children who were born in LRA captivity and living within the Acholi Sub-region don’t have national IDs.
Lanam said the children remain clan-less, with no sense of belonging in their community and country since they are missing vital personal documents among them National IDs and birth certificates to identify them.
She said the returnees are facing several challenges among others opening up personal bank accounts, registering for national examinations, especially students, and missing opportunities to travel outside the country.
“We have had instances where these children cannot register for examination or open up their bank accounts because they don’t have a National ID. We have informed National Identification Registration Authority (NIRA) and also the Ministry of Justice on these challenges,” Lanam told GNNA in an interview Tuesday.
Following a meeting held between representatives of the LRA returnees and the Internal Affairs Ministry represented by NIRA officials in Gulu in October last year, Lanam said there has been some little progress in the registration of the children born of war.
More than a dozen of the former returnees according to Lanam have successfully received their National Identity Cards after undergoing the special registration from October last year.
Lanam said they have been promised that the children will all be registered and access their national IDs.
“What we are doing at the moment is sensitizing them to turn up for the program since some of them are afraid after unsuccessful attempts,” she said.
NIRA acknowledges the challenge
Innocent Oryema, the District Registration Officer under NIRA in Gulu City acknowledged that children born of war have been facing challenges with registration for National Identity cards.
Mr. Oryema said whereas the challenges are slowly being addressed with a number of the returnees now registered, the biggest challenge remains their inability to register for birth certificates.
“The ID is based on details of parents while the birth certificate is based on location. So the ID bit we have made progress and a number of them have been registered,” said Oryema.
Oryema revealed that a high-level discussion is already ongoing between NIRA and the Ministry of Justice on a special program for the registration of children born of war for birth certificates.
Although it’s unclear how many children were born in captivity, a survey conducted in Acholi Sub-region by LRA victim representatives with support from the government in 2019, estimates that 3,200 children were born in LRA captivity to 2,895 young mothers conscripted into the rebel ranks from 1986.
The children are believed to have been born in the jungles of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), CAR, and South Sudan.
A case of Oloya
Ben Elijah Oloya, now residing in Bardege-Layibi Division in Gulu City was born in the LRA captivity and hasn’t been able to register for national ID.
The 23-year-old son to the elusive LRA leader, Joseph Kony, returned in 2010 with his mother but noted that to date he doesn’t own a birth certificate or a national ID.
Oloya disclosed that during the countrywide registration for the national ID launched in 2014, he shied away from participating in the exercise because the requirements needed his birthplace and details of his parents.
“… I couldn’t tell them I am a son of Kony and was born in the bush. It was sensitive information, and worst of all it was being asked in public. I believe I would have been stigmatized at school if I had revealed that,” Oloya told GNNA in an interview Wednesday.
Oloya said a special consideration for children born in LRA captivity would enable them to access birth certificates and national IDs which would open doors for many opportunities.
Last week, the Ministry of Defence handed over to the Office of the Prime Minister 78 children born in captivity for rehabilitation in Gulu City. The children are part of 141 former LRA abductees from Mboki and Zemio townships in the south-eastern Central African Republic between July and September 2023.
Since 1986 when LRA rebel leader and founder Joseph Kony launched his bloody rebellion in Northern Uganda, it’s estimated that 30,000 children were abducted by the LRA.
