This was my final paper for Psych 72Q: Traumatic Stress with Dr. Cheryl Koopman. I had been originally inspired to take the class by the Invisible Children film, which documented the crowds of children in Northern Uganda fleeing the Lord's Resistance Army. This paper allowed me to more fully study the situation and assess possible psychological consequences.
“That night, the LRA came abducting people in our village, and some neighbors led them to our house. They abducted all five of us boys at the same time. I was the fifth one. . . . We were told by the LRA not to think about home, about our mother or father. If we did, then they would kill us. Better to think now that I am a soldier fighting to liberate the country. There were twenty-eight abducted from our village that night. . . . We were all tied up and attached to one another in a row. After we were tied up, they started to beat us randomly; they beat us up with sticks.” (HRW Uganda, 2003)
This is a quote from a twelve year old child in Uganda who was kidnapped by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Beginning in the 1980’s and intensifying significantly since 2002, the LRA, a rebel group in Northern Uganda, has been abducting children to use as laborers, sex slaves, and soldiers. These children are brutally treated and are also forced to participate in heinous acts of violence. This paper will examine the situation in Uganda and its psychological implications. It will first review Uganda’s background of civil war and then expose the details of the abductions and the violence occurring in the LRA. The paper will then look at how there are similar situations in other locations around the world. Finally, this paper will describe the psychological problems facing the abducted children, and it will look at the possible long-term effects of recurring guilt and continuing violence.
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