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The R2P framework underscores the responsibility to protect populations caught up in the maelstrom of war and armed conflict, and as such, holds relevance for children born of conflict-related sexual violence. This paper explores the role and framework of R2P in relation to children born of conflict-related sexual violence in northern Uganda, a population largely overlooked in the post-war period. Drawing upon the direct experiences and perspectives of a sample of 60 children born in Lord’s Resistance Army (lra) captivity, the paper highlights the significant stigma and violence that these children continue to face in the post-war context. The post-war lives of these children not only demonstrate the multiple hardships they face as a result of the fallout of war, but also highlight the situation of these children as secondary and intergenerational victims of war that would benefit from the protection of the R2P framework and subsequent support.

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Despite growing research and interest in children born of war, their complex realities, and the experiences of their mothers, few studies have examined conceptions of fatherhood—particularly children’s perspectives of their biological fathers. This chapter breaks new ground by drawing upon research of children born in LRA captivity to explore their perspectives of their fathers and being fathered by members of the LRA. The authors’ research analyzes why these youths see their fathers as loving, nurturing, and powerful. They explain that fathers had reportedly provided their children with basic necessities, while protecting them from a variety of harms. The children’s portrayals of their fathers as loving and nurturing is in stark contrast the common depictions of LRA commanders in existing literature and scholarship where they are depicted as ruthless and violent perpetrators. Consequently, there is a need to challenge and transcend the single story of men in the LRA. The authors reveal a more nuanced, complex story of men who were simultaneously perpetrators, victims, fathers, caregivers, and commanders. The challenges that children and youth reported in relation to their origins and identity points toward a pressing need to consider their realities postconflict as separate from the plight of their mothers, whose views on their husbands will invariably differ from their children’s perspectives.