Startling New From Uganda

I set up RSS feeds on the right side of our blog for news from East Africa (All Africa) and this one came up. The first thing I thought of when I read this was, "Wow, what is more horrendous than this?" And, "This is exactly the situation we want to help!" And then I starting thinking about how the resource center in Southern Sudan that we want to build will aid in getting people out of the IDP camps and back to their homes, where they belong and can start putting their lives back together. That thought gives great encouragement and validity to what we will be doing there, and I hope it does for you as well...

Uganda: Expedite Return of IDPs to Their Homes

The Monitor (Kampala) 29 September 2007

A new report has unveiled the shocking findings that girls living in camps for the internally displaced are offering themselves for casual sex so they can survive. Even more disheartening is the report's revelation that some sexual encounters are in exchange for a price as low as Shs200. The August 2007 report, unveiled this week by the Ministry of Health, attempts to provide evidence for claims that children living in IDP camps give in to unprotected sex in the name of survival.

They risk their lives just so they can have today's food and soap, the report said, sensationally quoting some of the children. "The situation is terrible in these areas.

Children as young as 11 offer sex for a coin of Shs200," said Mr Ronald Kalyango, the lead researcher who presented the report before MPs. The survey covered over 10 IDP camps in the districts of Lira, Gulu, Kitgum, Apac and Pader-areas that have been hit hardest by years of insurgency and the attendant poverty.

Those findings, as sad as they are, reflect what has been suspected to happen in IDP camps and what numerous other reports have long suggested. But it is the intensity of the new findings that should worry the government and its partners in the non-governmental world.

Clearly, even though the government has in recent times made a good but rickety campaign to help IDPs return to their original homes, these revelations add a little urgency to the whole exercise.

Now it is really about the children-boys and girls who suffer violence and who realize, even if dangerously, that they can no longer have to depend on their parents and guardians to live another day. It is the kind of tale for which authorities in the disaster preparedness ministry should come out to state if nothing can be done to reverse that culture.

Considering that the report says the sexual acts involving children are deeply entrenched in camps for IDPs, the best possible solution is to provide real incentives for the children to want to go to school or return--along with their parents--to some sort of profitable activity, say farming, in their original homes.

What the government has so far done, specifically the handing out of seeds and farm implements-is commendable enough. Yet, in light of what we now know, what is needed is a solution that is specific to the personal needs of children living in the IDP camps.