Stigmatisation of former abductees and the role of teachers in a post-conflict society: the case of Kitgum, northern Uganda by Anita

Wolber and Alex Comninos

This article is based on the results of a Masters dissertation conducted as an empirical study by Anita Wolber in schools in Kitgum, northern Uganda. It is concerned with the topic of reintegration of former abductees into secondary schools. It focuses on the challenge of stigma that former abductees experience, on the roles that secondary school teachers play, and challenges they face in addressing issues of stigmatisation of former abductees. The threemonth fieldwork was based mainly in the Kitgum district and involved interviews, focus groups, surveys and classroom observation.
This work is is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License

Introduction An estimated 30,000 to 60,000 children and young adults in northern Uganda (aged 0 30) were abducted and forced to fight in the two decade-long conflict, mainly for the Lords Resistance Army (LRA).1 The length of their stay with belligerent groups varies (a day to ten years, with half of the abductees being gone for at least four months).2 In a case study by Blattman and

Annan the mental health of 500 formerly abductees and 500 non-abductees in Northern Uganda was compared, on average formerly abducted youth appear similar in their mental health to youth in the area who have not been abducted3. The minority of former abductees, roughly a sixth (who experienced extreme violence), show frequent symptoms of distress. This shows how immensely their social-psychological status varies after returning to their communities. However, the stigma that former abuctees receive after returning tends to remain constant labelled as a soldier for the LRA. Responses to this label often involve fear and distrust, due to perceptions held by people that former abductees are immoral, dangerous, and infected with HIV. In interviews and focus groups conducted with students, former abductees revealed that they were the subject of insults such as you are immoral, unethical, stubborn and you bring your warmentality here. Furthermore former abductees are associated with negative spirits arising from their time spent with the LRA. One of them for instance stated, when I returned into the school, no one wanted to be with me, they said that I am a murderer and that thus I am possessed with bad spirits. Girls and young woman who returned from the LRA face additional negative stereotypes. Some of them returned from the LRA with a child. Their children are stigmatized as children from the bush. Stigma was originally a term used by the ancient Greeks to refer to bodily signs designed to expose something unusual and bad about the moral status of the signifier.4 Stigma is socially constructed and thus dependant on the cultural context. Link and Phelan therefore argue that people who comply with norms in a particular social context are in relative power over the person who is labeled as being different in that particular context. Link and Phelan argue that the term stigma is often misused and too vaguely defined, whereby researchers often refer the term stigma with a meaning equivalent to the term stereotyping. They suggest that in order to define stigma it should be conceptualized first. Processes of stigmatization have five interlinked components which are, labeling, stereotyping, separation, status loss, and discrimination. Labeling, stereotyping and separation moreover leads to status loss and discrimination within the particular social and cultural context. 5 As Fraser also states low status and discrimination result in exclusion from access to social, economic and political power.6

The stigma former abductees receive threatens their psychological adjustment and reintegration.7 However, reintegration programmes have tended to place a minor focus on stigma, and the impact that it has on their reintegration. The Amnesty Act of 2000, mandating that everyone who put down their arms was granted freedom from criminal prosecution (including even high ranking commanders)8 was welcomed by many as a peace building strategy. However, the reintegration of people who were not just victims but also became perpetrators (by force) presents a Janus-faced challenge in terms of social justice: is justice possible for victims when peace is also a priority? Furthermore, how can justice be achieved when so many perpetrators are recognized (often rightly so) as victims? Resolving these challenges in the interests of forgiveness and reconciliation is not possible without addressing stigma. Teachers are mainly seen as responsible for educating and imparting knowledge to their students, but they are crucial actors in reintegration and peace-building teachers change mindsets and can help weave and reinforce the moral fabric of societies existing in a fragile peace. It is thus important to consider the role that teachers have in contributing to these larger goals by addressing in particular the stigmatisation of former abductees.

Challenges for teachers This article is based on research conducted in secondary schools in Kitgum, northern Uganda. It is concerned with reintegration of children and young adults formerly abducted by the LRA into secondary schools. It focuses on the challenge of stigma that former abductees experience, and the roles that school teachers play in addressing stigmatisation of former abductees. During the research the enormous challenges that teachers face became pertinent. Teachers face many challenges including economic challenges, insufficient training in how to reintegrate formerly abducted students, low societal status and dealing with traumatic experiences resulting from the conflict. This furthermore raises questions on how capable teachers are in addressing these issues? The insufficient salaries that teachers receive present significant challenges. Teachers revealed economic challenges such as The salaries that teachers get is very little compared to the cost of living., we cannot afford many things, things like sugar, we eat very poorly the money that we get is not enough for the whole month, many times we have to beg for money for food. Conflict has weakened teachers economic situations; many teachers are not just responsible for their own children, but also for extended families. One teacher stated, I have to take care of the children of my younger brother who died during the war I have to pay school fees for example. Many teachers cannot afford to send their own children to school which affects their performance and motivation as one teacher stated, this is an obvious case, of course it affects my motivation if I have to teach other parents children while my own ones have to stay at home. Many teachers have to leave the profession in order to properly eke out a living as one teacher explained Many good teachers have gone from teaching. Others even joined politics or business, others are teaching now in Rwanda or Sudan where conditions are much better. Teachers who decide to remain in schools often have to find other jobs to complement their income, the most common are selling vegetables, driving the boda boda (motocyle taxis), or running a small shop. The low salary reflects the low status that teachers receive from society which is reinforced in popular culture; reflected in a song by a popular music artist called Edie Kigere, called Embooko (which means teacher) which portrays teachers as poor and alcoholics. A teacher explained the lyrics: You have a degree, but you are still poor, you can only afford 500 Ugandan shilling airtime (USD 0.21).9

Psychological trauma arising from the conflict is another important challenge that teachers face. Many teachers themselves were victims of the LRA, either through their own abduction or through the loss of family members such as their own children. Teachers were particularly affected by the conflict; schools were a popular spot for the LRA to abduct children, and teachers were in the position of protectors. They were seen by the LRA as allies of the government and were thus a main target. To scare teachers from protecting their students, the LRA used cruel tactics, one social worker for an international NGO for instance explained to show their enormous power [the LRA] killed many teachers, or they made teachers kill or in better words slaughter them. One teacher stated I witnessed slaughtering and eating of human flesh. Our school was confronted in an ambush and later on teachers were cooked in a pot. Around 17 people died in the day. We had to eat them forcefully and if you refuse you had to join them in the pot. Some teachers were abducted by the LRA, one teacher said I was abducted when I was 13 years old and I stayed until I was 16. I believed what Kony had said was right. Killing people became something for me that was just normal. But then it came to me in a dream that I have to go back to see my family and luckily I was able to escape. Interviews with secondary teachers revealed the high prevalence of trauma and distress arising from teachers war experience. The majority of teachers (95%) surveyed stated that they felt that they themselves were in need of counseling. A psychologist from an international NGO explained the importance of the healing process of a generation in the following words: Teachers are highly traumatized, you dont even want to know what they have been through. But the government does not put in effort in them. If there is a natural disaster happening the first thing we would do would be to heal the doctor first, so he can heal other patients. This how it should be in education. Heal the teacher and he can heal the next generation. But here, we cannot see that. Counseling of teachers is needed in order to address stigmatisation of former abductees, furthermore counseling is needed in the interests of forgiveness, reconciliation and peacebuilding. The majority of teachers in the Acholi sub-region lost family members to the LRA. How can teachers be expected to address these tasks if they themselves have been victimized by the LRA,

without being afforded an opportunity to reflect on their traumatic experiences with the help of a professional counselor or psychologist? Stigma perceived by formerly abducted students Interviews with former abductees revealed that they are stigmatised by teachers and other important figures in school and their communities. One formerly abducted student stated: so many bad things happened during time of war, and we get blamed for the war. Many teachers blame it then on former abductees. Typical statements revealed in focus group discussion with formerly abducted students included for example you people who come from the bush [LRA camps], you do not know how to behave, you are immoral, unethical and stubborn, you bring the war-mentality here. Interviews revealed that stigmatisation of former abductees was highly entrenched among teachers. One teacher revealed that this school has a reputation for being a good school, our performance is not bad, we can almost compete with schools from the South. Former abductees do not belong here, NGOs brought them here, because they pitied them, but they should not be at a school which is so competitive. They are not here on their own merit. Problems with reintegration programmes in secondary schools Assistance by NGOs for teachers in how to reintegrate formerly abducted students was mostly given to primary school teachers with the assumption that if a formerly abducted student is able to reintegrate into primary school they will eventually also reintegrate into secondary schools. These assumptions neglect the challenges of stigmatisation and rejection in secondary schools. Many NGOs and their donors have been concerned with the reintegration of abductees. There are a plethora of programmes attempting to deal with the reintegration of former abductees into the school system. NGOs provided sponsorship for former abductees involving material support such as the provision of school fees, pocket money, mattresses, school materials and transport money.10 This material approach has however had unintended consequences which has often reinforced stigmatisation of former abductees. One formerly abducted student said that teachers tell us that we do not belong here, that we were just lucky because the NGOs gave us a sponsorship, but we actually did not deserve it.

A teacher reflected on these problems, the NGOs come here and sponsor those ones who were even the ones who committed the atrocities, I know that what they have done was not their free will, but can you imagine what this created among students?...we had students here whose family members have been victims of returnees who are here at the same school, can you image what happens if these returnees come back and get all the sponsorship and then students who might have lost her parents do not get anything?

The one-sided material focus on former abductees can be harmful. The numbers of formerly abducted students were either exaggerated by schools or by students themselves in order to receive material benefits. As one teacher stated it become an open lie, students were claiming they were abducted, even though they never were, it went that far. The research has also shown that the material support has caused jealousy, neglected other war-affected students, and reinforced stigmatisation. For many students it seemed as if formerly abducted students received

a reward for being with the LRA, as one student said So many NGOs came to support those former abductees, and also researchers came only for them. They never came to us, neither did we get any assistance.Another stated that all NGOs and people like you [researchers] never asked us about our needs and problems, neither did we get any assistance, they only came for those abductees, but no no one ever cared about us. Furthermore the sponsorship that formerly abducted students received compromised the confidentiality of the formerly abducted status of many children, which was a breach of the teachers code of ethics. As one teacher explained, our ethics states that we shall not break confidential information about the child, and stigmatisation also did not used to be an issue at this school, however the well-intended approaches of NGOs turned into a disaster. It did not only seem as if returnees were rewarded for what they have done, but also the confidentiality was broken, they wrote lists about who was abducted and these lists were spread around the school. This breach of ethics had devastating consequences for former abductees. Stigmatisation became an issue that could not be solved anymore which lead to the high drop-out rates of returnees, one teacher stated we had to dismiss them in order to maintain the general peace in our school, other students dropped out voluntarily they could not stand the school environment anymore, it was too much for them, so one after the other were just jumping over the fence and never returned. Considerations Psycho-social support is needed in addition to material support. A stigma-sensitive and more holistic approach that includes all war-affected students rather than just former abductees should be considered by practitioners dealing with formerly abducted and war affected students. Teachers and other actors involved in reconciliation and peacebuilding should also be provided with psycho-social support. Stigma remains important consideration for NGOs and practitioners. Stigma leads to exclusion of certain people and thus threatens reintegration of former abductees into secondary schools and Ugandan society as a whole. Teachers are crucial actors and stakeholders in reintegration programmes, the role of teachers and the particular challenges they face must be recognized and acknowledged in all reintegration programmes involving former abductees.

The research revealed that some teachers try very hard to develop strategies for addressing stigmatisation and providing psycho-social support. The Ugandan government has recognized the need for psycho-social support and the need to address stigma of former abductees and has implemented a course called Guidance and Counselling for teachers in their training. However this course focuses mainly on career planning and needs to more explicitly deal with stigmatisation of former adbuctees, how to recognize it, and strategies to deal with stigmatisation. Moreover, as this course was only implemented in universities in 2008, there are many teachers in the school system that have not taken the course. There needs to be more investment in training regarding addressing stigma and providing psycho-social support.

A subject that deals with peace-building and reconciliation should be, as teachers suggested, implemented nationwide. Taken for granted beliefs such as the misconceptions about former abductees and Northerners in general could be addressed.

This research revealed that there is a lack of trained and professional counselors in schools in the Kitgum disctrict. Furthermore many teachers have to take on dual roles as both counselor and teacher. Teachers themselves, not just students, are in great need of counseling in order to find coping methods to deal with their traumatic war experiences.

A focus on just primary schools in the provision of assistance to reintegration as well as in tackling stigmatisation is not enough. Secondary schools also need to be given attention. As this research has shown, it cannot be taken for granted that if a former abducted child was able to reintegrate into primary school, that they will also be integrated into secondary school.

Anita Wolber is a graduate of the University of Amsterdam, Graduate School of Social Sciences, she conducted three-month fieldwork for her Masters dissertation in the Kitgum district in northern Uganda. Alex Comninos is a researcher and doctoral candidate at Justus Liebig University in Giessen, Germany.

This work is is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License

Children were abducted to a lesser extent by the national army, the Uganda Peoples Defence Force, and Local Defence Units. Children abducted by the UPDF were used for gathering intelligence and for0 identifying LRA positions and weapons caches. (Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers (2008) Global Report 2008, Available at: http://www.childsoldiersglobalreport.org/content/uganda Accessed on: 29 January 2012)
2

Blattman, Christopher and Annan, Jeannie (2008) Child combatants in northern Uganda: Reintegration myths and realities. In Muggah, Robert. (ed.) Security and Post-Conflict Reconstruction: Dealing with Fighters in the Aftermath of War. London: Routledge, pp. 103 -126 ; Blattman, Christopher and Annan, Jeannie (2010) The Consequences of Child Soldiering.The Review of Economics and Statistics 92(4), pp. 882-898.
3

Blattmann and Anan (2008), op cit. Goffman, Erwin (1963) Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. New York: Simon & Schuster, p.10. Link, Bruce G. and Phelan, Jo C. (2001) Conceptualizing Stigma. Annual Review of Sociology 27, pp. 363-385. Fraser, Nancy (2005) Reframing justice in a globalising world. New Left Review 36, pp. 69-88.

Betancourt, Theresa S., Agnew-Blais, Jessica., Gilman, Stephen E., Williams, David R. and Ellis, B. Heidi (2009). Past horrors, present struggles: The role of stigma in the association between war experiences and psychosocial adjustment among former child soldiers in Sierra Leone. Social Science and Medicine 70, pp. 17-26.
8

Mallinder, Louise (2009). Uganda at a Crossroads: Narrowing the Amnesty?, Working Paper No. 1 From Beyond Legalism: Amnesties, Transition and Conflict Transformation, Queens University Belfast.
9

The song is so popular that there are many covers and remixes. A remix of the song by Master Blaster (with explanatory visuals) can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGADg0bgDPw.
10

Blattmann and Anan (2008), op cit.