BENGALURU: He still remembers the face of a 16-year-old mother, who was abducted when she was 10 years old by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) – a banned guerrilla group - in Northern Uganda; was forced to kill her parents, raped and brutalized by the LRA soldiers.
“She was one of the many children, who were rescued from the LRA by the Ugandan government. We were helping children get back to their lives and re-integrate them with their extended families in their villages,” said the well-known City-based psychosocial expert and head of ‘Basic Needs India’ (BNI), Dr Rajaram Subbian, who was in Uganda between 2004-’06 working with the International Rescue Committee, USA. BNI is a voluntary organization that seeks to address community mental health concerns
He added that the minor had two genuine concerns regarding getting back to her village. “She told me that the villagers would not accept her because she had killed her parents, and secondly, the fact that she did not know who the father of her son was may make it even more difficult for her village to take her in,” he added.
“Militant leader of the LRA Joseph Kony used to kidnap thousands of children from the villages in Uganda to be used as soldiers or sex slaves. Before leaving with his hostages, he used to force them to kill their parents and smear their foreheads with their blood,” said Subbian.
“This 16-year-old girl was also forced to kill her parents when she was abducted,” he narrated.
Subbian has worked extensively with children, young adults, and others in war-torn and conflict areas. His first tenure as a psychosocial worker was in Sri Lanka in 1996, at the peak of its 30-year-old civil war.
“I had gone to the LTTE strongholds in Northern and Eastern Sri Lanka. They used to conduct propaganda street plays in the villages and, by the end of their performance, they would invariably take back some adolescent converts in their vehicles. The minors were taken to the LTTE training camps to be trained in all aspects of war. Some, who were rescued by the army told us they didn’t want to go back to the camps and yearned to go to college,” said Subbian.
“A five-year-old boy told me he harvests 10 kgs of onions every day to earn Rs 5. He was paid 50 paise for plucking 1 kg of onion. I still remember his hands. They were rough and crude. He also told me that he wants to go to school,” said the social worker.
Subbian has also worked in Afghanistan between 2011-12, where he was developing social work curriculum for Kabul University as part of the UNICEF and Hunters College, USA project. “The normal of a conflict area is very different. In Afghanistan, people were used to seeing places getting bombed and mass casualties. They would carry on with their work in the midst of all this,” said Subbian.
“Children in conflict areas need a lot of empathy. They are victims of an environment where there is no trust. To help children one has to work at their level,” he added.