05/09/2008
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That's the view of the human-rights group World Vision, whose representative spoke Thursday about her harrowing life as a child soldier trained to kill.
She was abducted from her parents in Uganda and pressed into the role, said Grace Akallo, as were an estimated 26,000 other girls and boys -- some as young as 7 years old. They were forced to kill or be killed since civil war began in 1986, Akallo said at the Mid-Maine Global Forum.
Young girls who are snatched from their schools and homes by Ugandan rebels are twice brutalized -- forced to fight and forced to wed soldiers in a war that has left an entire generation with little hope for the future, she said.
"I was trained to be a soldier to fight," Akallo, 28, told the gathering at the Williamson Auditorium. "I was given as a wife to a man twice older than my father.
"I was sent to fight. I was forced to kill."
Akallo was just 15 when she was dragged from her high school in 1996 by Ugandan rebels and taken to a rebel stronghold in southern Sudan.
She escaped "after a lot of suffering and torture" in 1997 and returned to her village to finish school. She later attended college and at age 21 came to Massachusetts where she graduated from Gordon College with a degree in communications.
She joined World Vision, a Christian organization that helps children all over the world.
In 2004 she spoke before the Amnesty International annual meeting and appeared on the Oprah show. In April 2006 she testified before the U.S. Congress on Africa and global human rights.
She now lives with her husband and their 6-month-old son in Worcester, Mass. She hopes to return home to Uganda someday.
Akallo was introduced Thursday by Cynthia Gabriel from Amnesty International's Boston office.
Akallo's message Thursday was to help Americans learn more about the plight of the woman and children of Uganda and to urge Maine's congressional delegation to support the ratification of the United Nations' Convention of the Rights of the Child.
The convention, or agreement, already singed by nearly 200 nations, calls for freedom from violence, exploitation and abduction of children. It also calls for education, food, health care and equal right for people of all colors.
Akallo said Somalia and the United States are the only nations that have not yet ratified the treaty.
Her address and book signing was sponsored by the Global Forum, of which Lawrence High School history teacher Steve Knight is a member. The appearance was made possible by a Coburn grant, Knight said.
Akallo's book is titled "Girl Soldier: A Story of Hope for Northern Uganda's Children" and is available at Amazon.com or by going to her Web site www.gracegirlsoldier.com.
Akallo said at one point during her ordeal she was taken for dead from hunger and thirst and was buried alive, far from home.
Speaking Thursday without notes or a prepared statement, Akallo was able to scan the faces of the audience as she spoke of the ravages of AIDS in Africa and of poverty, war and the brutal abuse of people on a daily basis. She said the girls who are abducted, ultimately have babies of their own and the cycle resumes.
Even returning to camps in Uganda, there is no peace.
"These camps have been there for 21 years," she said. "Children who are born there have known no peace, only violence.
"Each one of us has a right to live, a right to basic things that some people in Uganda don't have -- some people in my neighboring countries don't have -- Congo, Sudan, Kenya."
Akallo said there has been a tenuous cease-fire since 2006 and child abductions have dropped accordingly, but there is no guarantee that the peace will last.
Doug Harlow -- 861-9244
dharlow@centralmaine.com
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