This chapter explores the importance of kinship for children born of war among the Langi ethnic group of northern Uganda. Based on the author’s extensive on ethnographic research, she explores the experiences of ten children conceived in the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), who after exiting the LRA joined their maternal families and communities in Lango. The author finds that these children could not benefit directly from the policies that regulated the descent affiliation of newborns. First, by not invoking Lango customary marriage procedures before conception, LRA parents failed to fulfil the customary rules and conditions that clarified the identity of their offspring. This ambiguity in their descent affiliation was reflected in their struggles to integrate. Second, some maternal families found it hard to invoke a peacetime remedy like that of luk in clarifying the descent affiliation of children born of war, because of the perceived use of rape by the LRA in the sexual relations between their daughters and the fathers of their children. Like marriage, luk was a means of lineage making for offspring resulting from such relations, and the subsequent creation of new bridges between clans in the language of kinship. The concepts, practices, and rituals of marriage and luk place children in a relational position within a kinship system, making them legitimate claimants of resources and opportunities.

No abstract

The literature on children born of conflict-related sexual violence, or Children Born of War (CBOW) is dominated by accounts and perceptions of suffering and risks that they experience both during and after armed conflict. In contrast, this article focusses on nuanced experiences of CBOW after suffering adversities. The study applies the culturally sensitive revised 17-item Children and Youth Resilience Measure (CYRM-R) to 35 CBOW conveniently sampled from a population of those born to former forced wives of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and another population born between 1993 and 2006 as a result of sexual violence perpetrated by cattle raiders in northern Uganda. Following the analysis of the CYRM-R scores, eight participants representing different quartiles, different scores on the relational/caretaker and personal resilience sub scales were identified to take part in a subsequent semi-structured interview process. The aim was to examine how CBOW in northern Uganda demonstrate resilience, the factors that influence their resilience experiences, and what it means for the broader concept of integration. Overall, CBOW are not merely stuck in their problems; past and present. Rather, findings indicate CBOW are confronting the realities of their birth statuses, and making the best use of their resources and those within the wider environment to adapt and overcome difficulties.