Wartime captivity and homecoming: culture, stigma, and coping strategies of formerly abducted women in post‐conflict northern Uganda

Abstract

One of the three durable solutions to mass displacement preferred by leading agencies is that survivors return to their home communities. It is believed that families and communities provide the best hope for recovery and reintegration owing to familiarity, care, and shared culture. Yet, these 'places of hope and comfort' can also be, potentially, a hostile environment in which stigma can flourish. Women who were abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army in northern Uganda find that achieving meaningful reintegration into their communities is a distant prospect despite being the home culture they once shared. The stigmatisation of formerly abducted persons by home community members who have never been abducted renders them 'outsiders' upon return. Meaningful relationships with fellow community members and access to cultural, social, and economic systems are hampered by the women's traumatic past. This experience has significant implications for these women, negotiating their journey to recovery and reintegration into home communities.

Event centrality and conflict-related sexual violence: A new application of the Centrality of Event Scale (CES)

“…In Uganda, we found significant correlations between participants’ CES scores and particular ARM factors, notably cultural and social bonds, as well as relationships with friends and community. The broad cultural context does not encourage event centrality with respect to CRSV (see, for example, Bamidele, 2017: 77; Porter, 2017: 15), in part due to the social stigma attached to such violence (see Kiconco and Nthakomwa, 2022). Nevertheless, the positive relationship between CES scores and protective factors that enable resilience indicates that those who exhibit high event centrality are more likely to actively seek out sources of support within their social ecologies.…”