By Josephine Adams
The Rescue was an event organised by three young American film makers, Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey and Laren Poole, who founded Invisible Children, a non-profit organisation that aims to help put an end to the exploitation of children as soldiers.
The idea of The Rescue was that participants would “abduct themselves” by taking just a few survival items to camp at a designated site.
They were not allowed to leave the site until a celebrity or media mogul came and spoke out about the plight of the Ugandan child soldiers. When this happened, the city was “rescued”.
The activists spent their time “abducted” writing letters to the children concerned and also to influential people they hoped would help free the child soldiers.
This event received a mixed response. Some applauded it for bringing attention to the issue, while others said it didn’t highlight the seriousness of the situation clearly enough.
Juliane Okot Bitek, a Ugandan woman living in Canada, felt that “to ask thousands of young people to pretend that they can “abduct themselves” into creating a new reality for the children in the northern Uganda is more than appalling, it is manipulative and undermines the horror of the last two decades of suffering over there”.
The organisers, however, firmly believe that raising awareness, and more than US$23,000, is what’s most important. It also gained the attention of governments around the world, which have put resources towards helping negotiate peace in Uganda.
The reality facing child soldiers
Uganda is not alone in recruiting children to perform the horrific rites of war. Conflicts in Myanmar, Columbia, Liberia, Sierra Leone and several African nations affect young people in horrific ways. They miss out on education, are used as forced labour, as well as being used as soldiers in wars they may not understand.
Children can be forcibly recruited into armed forces, but also ‘volunteer’ because they see no other option; joining the army may be seen as the only way of surviving. Children may see these armies as a way to avenge murdered family members, earn status and power in their societies, or escape domestic abuse.
Unfortunately they are usually mistaken. We know from children who have escaped such situations that they are often required to prove their loyalty to armies by killing a friend or family member, they have no power over themselves or anyone else, and the violent abuse they are subjected to daily is worse than what they would suffer at home.
Photo by Joram Jojo
Uganda, Joseph Kony and the LRA
Uganda is a landlocked country in the east of Africa. Throughout its history, it has suffered various conflicts. The different ethnicities of Uganda have been pitted against each other, first as a method of control by the British colonisers, and after independence in 1962, by the Ugandan government itself.
This has led to the rise of many rebel groups including the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). LRA’s leader, Joseph Kony, is regarded as a holy man by his followers; none of them doubt his apparently ’supernatural’ powers.
The LRA was originally the Holy Spirit Movement, led by Alice Lakwena, whom Kony claims was his cousin. After her death, Kony took over and took the resistance group in a more violent direction, but with the continued aim of making Uganda a state based on the Christian Ten Commandments.
Invisible Children estimate that over 90% of the LRA’s forces were abducted as children.
Children all around northern Uganda live under constant threat of abduction and those who attend school often band together in groups to walk from their schools to safe sleeping areas in large cities.
It is because of these abductions that the current government placed thousands of its people in internal displacement camps (IDCs), originally meant to help protect the people from raids by the LRA. Unfortunately, these camps have just made the rebels’ jobs easier. With so many people packed together, LRA soldiers are able to attack many more people at one time, ruining homes, taking food, raping women and abducting children.
Abducted children can be used as soldiers, porters, sex slaves, or used to lay explosives. All are trained in combat and participate in violence. Many are made to kill friends or family.
A former child soldier, aged 13, describes what happened when he was made to join: “Early on, when my brothers and I were captured, the LRA explained to us that all five brothers couldn’t serve in the LRA because we would not perform well. So they tied up my younger brothers and invited us to watch. Then they beat them with sticks until two of them died. They told us it would give us strength to fight. My youngest brother was nine years old.”
The reality of The Rescue
The children fortunate enough to escape or be rescued then face another set of obstacles. The psychological, and often physical, scarring left after serving in the LRA means that many children are haunted by the abuse they suffered, the people they have killed and by guilt for what they have done. Funding for specialised rehabilitation centres is very limited.
Many will be stigmatised by their communities for what they were a part of, whether they volunteered or not, and post-traumatic stress is common.
Faced with the reality of the life of a child solider, it is easy to understand Juliane Okot Bitek’s criticism of The Rescue, but I believe both Bitek and The Rescue’s organisers have a point.
The Rescue successfully raised awareness of the issue, as well as more than US$23,000. However, it is unclear just how well the young people involved understood what’s actually happening in Uganda.
The biggest appeal of this kind of event for young people is often just the opportunity to get out and actively feel like we’re helping to make a difference. There is nothing wrong with this; it is, in fact, a very good thing. But does The Rescue undermine the suffering of children in Uganda over the last two decades?
Maybe, maybe not, but these young people are trying to recreate an ‘abduction’; a horror that they cannot possibly comprehend.
TAKE ACTION
- Visit www.invisiblechildren.com and donate money, or find out about new initiatives that Jason, Bobby and Laren are planning.
- Donate to organisations such as Save the Children and War Child, which also strive to protect children living in conflicted areas.
- There are several documentaries about child soldiers, such us those by Invisible Children; and Uganda Rising, by Act for Stolen Children. Plan a screening in your community to raise awareness, and encourage others to try to make a difference.
- Organise your own demonstrations or events to help raise awareness and money.
LEARN MORE
www.invisiblechildren.comwww.child-soldiers.org/home
http://therescue.invisiblechildren.com/en/#/watch/
www.savethechildren.org
www.warchild.org
Photo of The Rescue campaign by luos3r.
This article was originally published in Tearaway Magazine.
The sun bore down on Civic Square at high noon on 20 February 2008 as members of the public, diplomatic representatives, and civil society activists joined forces on the warmed cobblestones, their frames outlined in chalk as a visual protest organised by the Aotearoa New Zealand Cluster Munition Coalition. Delegates rushed to apply sun block after rumours circulated of the depleted ozone layer looming above New Zealand. Placards in many languages were held high — Portuguese, Thai, French, Spanish, Sanskrit, and English. Indian and Pakistani stood side by side with one voice. With her equally powerful voice, Jody Williams, 1997 Nobel Peace Laureate, let loose from an invisible soapbox and the media loved every moment. In some respects, it was glorious advocacy. Public action as we wish it always is.
Imagine the victims of cluster munitions on the streets of your own capital. For some, that exercise may not be that tough. Still, the question remains, how close do the repercussions of deadly weapons have to get before empathy hits home? An ally? A neighbouring country? Our front doorstep?
OIYP is a three year programme, which aims to build the capacity of the Action Partners (the name given to Youth Partners) by providing us with support and resources, and creating opportunities for dialogue, networking and learning. Our first opportunity came in October this year at Kaleidoscope, a festival where all of the Action Partners come together in Sydney, for nine days of workshops, dances, performances, art, theatre and meeting a zillion new people.
The welcoming ceremony took place on the first night, hosted by the Darug people, the indigenous people of the area. There was Aboriginal song and dance, which was responded to by various groups such as Aotearoa New Zealand, Bangladesh, India, and First Nations of the Americas. It was an incredible start to the event, and was at times very emotional.
During the week there were six plenary sessions, along with around fifty workshops, some of which were led by Action Partners. Some of the workshops were only two hours long, while others were four hours over two days. Topics ranged from project management, indigenous rights, land rights, to access to health, access to education, gender and equality, gender and sexuality, and using photography and film. They were helpful, although complaints arose due to their brevity and lack of international or easily transferable context. A complaint from the Latin Americans was that there was too great a focus on Western culture and issues, rather than a diverse representation
We had several opportunities to explore Sydney, predominantly in the evenings, although we did have one free afternoon. Many of us went to a salsa club on Friday night and some gay clubs on the Saturday. Art and dance was a significant part of Kaleidoscope, with Oxfam wanting to explore the power of various forms of art as a tool for development. There were large canvases for painting, dance, song, beat-boxing performances, all with opportunities to try it yourself. A particular highlight for me was watching dancers from Brazil, along with Capoeira performers.
Have you ever felt like you’re being watched in a shop because it’s assumed that you’re “just a thieving teenager”? Ever felt hard done by because an older co-worker is being paid more money than you, to do the same job? If you’ve answered yes to either of these questions, then you have experienced ageism. Ageism can be defined as stereotypes or prejudice against people because of their age. It can manifest itself in a variety of ways and can apply whether you are young or old.
International Youth Day is celebrated on August 12 in countries all over the world, as an opportunity to draw attention to youth issues worldwide. In Aotearoa New Zealand we mark a whole WEEK in May, to celebrate the accomplishments of young people and the amazing contributions they make to our society. At the same time it is sad to note that in the media the same group is presented as a bunch of drunken, drug-crazed miscreants, arsonists and shoplifters, a group which society must protect itself from rather than embrace. Headlines such as Second cell break at Rimutaka youth unit’, “Concern about Youth Drinking Culture’ and Youth crime on the rise’ are common, and if this is the kind of journalism our parents and grandparents consume every day, then it is little wonder that a negative stereotype of youth has been established. Where are the stories about the vast majority of young people?! Those who go to school every day and work hard, take up part time jobs and participate in their communities.
Adolescence is a tough times in anyone’s life, whoever you are, wherever you live. Growing up is never easy and it has been made even more complex by the plethora of paths available for us. Drugs have never been so readily available, nor alcohol; violence has never been more mainstream, nor sex. Just as adults are exposed to bad press about the youth of today, so we are is exposed to this press about ourselves. Everyone is having sex so you should too. Drinking is cool’, right? Ditto smoking. And who cares if drugs are illegal. Remember the news? That’s just what teenagers do. And we are exposed to these ideas younger and younger. You may remember recent uproar over the use of dirty slogans on children’s underwear. Young children, especially boys, can be seen playing violent war games and hoon’-ie car games on gaming consoles. One might think we, today’s youth, are doomed to a life of unprotected sex, drugs and uncontrolled parties.
But consider this: never before have so many young people stayed in school, never have so many graduated from university. Never before have there been so many young people with part time jobs, working hard despite low wages. There is much to celebrate about our peers. You only need to look at the wonderful work of young people in JET magazine, to marvel at the awesome leadership of your head boys and girls, to appreciate the great contribution students participating in the Peer Support programme make to their schools, in order to see that young people have great value and that we are so much more than a bunch of P-crazed, STI-carrying thugs. The young people we read about in the papers are not all of us. And we know that. We just need society to realise that.
Being young doesn’t mean you’re useless. It doesn’t mean that a security guard should be following you any more closely in a store than any other shopper. It doesn’t mean old ladies should avoid you in the street. The best way to change negative stereotypes is to fight back, so it is our job to let society know how great we really are. Be proud to be young. Get involved in Youth Week this year and rubbish those bad impressions! In the words of a US teen-pride campaign: “Prove them wrong by doing something right.”
Despite all the negative issues there are also increasingly positive steps that people the world over that are beginning to take to make changes for Peace, to live in harmony with the Earth and amongst all peoples.
Ngā iwi e, Ngā iwi e
On the last night of the inaugural Pacific Youth Festival held in Tahiti between 17 and 22 July, it was revived as ninety New Caledonians cheered the end of the festival and sung for a new day in the fight for self-determination in the Pacific. They sang for freedom, their banner bearing the words “Delegation of New Caledonia” (a reminder to the festival of their refusal to march under the French flag). The song, echoing in the outdoor stadium as the sun went down over the harbour of Pape’ete, and the warm Pacific wind stirred the Kanaky flags they carried in their hands and wore around their necks.
On Saturday morning Charmaine and I prepared the hall for the around one hundred youth and interested observers, including two members of the French Polynesian Assembly, who came to discuss colonisation and decolonisation. It turned into a very successful forum and we were able to put colonisation back on the agenda of the festival. Samoans came to talk about their dark past at the hands of colonial New Zealand; Kanaky, Maohi, Cook Islanders, Palauans came to discuss their islands’ experiences; Australians came to vent their frustration that there was only one aboriginal in their delegation, Papua New Guineans remembered their brothers and sisters in West Papua, who the government had warned them not to talk about at the Youth Festival. The pain of the Pacific peoples flowed through the room, the hurt, frustration and anger at last beginning to be discussed in an open way instead of being swept under the rug.
