Original article
Dealing With the Consequences of War: Resources of Formerly Recruited and Non-Recruited Youth in Northern Uganda

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2013.11.023Get rights and content

Abstract

Purpose

This article explores resources that help formerly recruited young people in dealing with war-related adversity and subsequent challenges, hence fostering their resilience.

Methods

Self-reports on pertinent resources were collected from 1,008 northern Ugandan youth, of whom 330 had formerly been recruited by the Lord's Resistance Army. Based on the conceptual framework developed by the Psychosocial Working Group, the reported resources were thematically clustered and quantitatively analyzed.

Results

This study identified a range of human, social, and cultural resources, with little difference between groups. Religious beliefs, social support, and mental health resources were most frequently reported by former child soldiers.

Conclusions

These results reveal a multitude of resources and suggest that it is important to build on these resources in interventions that aim to support former child soldiers in the aftermath of armed conflict.

Section snippets

Sites

Northern Uganda has been the hotbed of a 2-decade–long armed conflict involving numerous civilian casualties, among whom are thousands of child soldiers. This study was carried out in Lira district, which was a site of systematic abductions of children by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). In the wake of the cessation of hostilities agreement in 2006, this area continues to undergo a transition from violence toward peace, which requires children's well-being to break cycles of violence [21].

Participants

Sample characteristics

Table 1 presents the sociodemographic characteristics of the sample. One third of participants (n = 330; 32.8%) had been recruited by the LRA for an average duration of 1 year (median 348.50 days; mean, 564.79 days; standard deviation, 752.74 days; range, 1–6,570 days). A third of the former child soldiers (n = 113; 34.56%) had returned before 2003, approximately half (n = 164; 50.15%) between 2004 and 2006, and a minority (n = 50; 15.29%) later than 2006.

Resource (Sub)domains

Table 2 gives an overview of the

Discussion

Research on former child soldiers is increasingly bringing attention to their resilience and the resources that facilitate resilient responses to the challenges they experience in the aftermath of child soldiering. This study contributes to this relatively young and evolving discipline of strengths-based research and interventions for war-affected young people, by revealing the resources that former child soldiers may experience on multiple social ecological domains.

Among the most important

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the invaluable help of the research assistants, principals, and LC1 chairpersons who considerably facilitated this research. In particular, sincere gratitude and appreciation go to all participants of this study.

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