Week 4 - Refugee Children Define Abuse

Location: Kampala, Uganda

On the morning of Saturday, April 24, I waited in the small lobby of the InterAid Refugee Community Centre on Sir Apollo Kaggwa Road with a child counselor. In a meeting during the previous week, she had informed me that refugee children from all over Kampala convene at the center every Saturday morning at 9:30 to receive brief lessons in English, gender based violence, MDD, and a variety of other subjects. Seeking to give my research project a more narrow focus, I was excited to learn more about the struggles faced by refugee children in an urban setting. Though the counselor had already identified parentlessness, homelessness, and a lack of access to education as some of the most daunting challenges confronted by refugee children in Kampala throughout our previous interactions, I felt that this meeting would give me the opportunity to hear about these struggles from the children themselves.

Though the counselor had told me to expect the arrival of around 80 children, it was nearing 10:00 and only 7 youths had entered the doors of the community center. Though the counselor had initially seemed certain that many children would show up, she eventually admitted that one could never know for sure how many attendants these meetings would have. The problem is rooted in geography. Though InterAid had tried to position its community center in a convenient and accessible location, it was simply impossible to accommodate all of Kampala’s refugees. Though some refugee nationalities, such as the Somalis and Ethiopians, generally settle in a single location, larger refugee populations, most notably the Congolese, are sprawled all across Kampala. So despite the community center’s central location, travel time for some children may exceed two hours.

After giving the children a little more time to reach the center, we began our lesson on child abuse at 10:17 with a class of 12. Though a few of them spoke English fairly well, the counselor informed me that refugee children in Kampala are able to understand Luganda much more easily. Given this knowledge, I introduced myself accordingly: “Nze Mark, Nva mu America. Mu Uganda mberra Makerere University.” When introductions had been taken care of, the lesson began with the counselor asking the class to name all the different types of abuse that they could think of. After the students had offered their input, the counselor grouped all of their responses into two categories on a blackboard that rested against the wall at the front of the small classroom: physical abuse and psychological abuse. The counselor then continued, “physical abuse is what you see outside, mental abuse you can’t see but in their behavior you can see.” Though I was perplexed by her explanation, the children showed that that they had understood by nodding their heads and offering up additional examples of both types of abuse.

After directing the class to draw different types abuse that could be faced by children, she asked me watch over the classroom as she met with her boss outside. As I walked around the classroom, I noticed a common trend in all the pictures. Nearly every drawing depicted both beating and child labor. One picture, for example, was divided into three parts. The first part was labeled “overbeating” and displayed a man violently beating a boy with a long stick. The second part depicted a boy fetching water from very far away. Finally, the third part showed a small child watering a plant.

Although I was happy to learn that the children viewed abuse as more than just a physical act, I was also somewhat disturbed after seeing exactly what kinds of activities perceived as being abusive. Though the aforementioned picture depicted a form of child labor that certainly constituted child abuse, other pictures identified much less strenuous forms of child labor with abuse. For example, one nine-year-old girl drew a detailed picture of a child bathing her infant sister. Though I could only assume so much about this girl’s experiences from a two-dimensional drawing, it is hard to see how such an act could be abusive. I know that in many African societies, children are believed to have agency and are actively involved in domestic work. Though InterAid is a Ugandan NGO, it acts as an implementing partner of UNHCR and is thus influenced by its Western definitions of child labor and abuse. If these children are taught that their own cultural traditons are faulty, I fear these lessons may cause many more problems in the home than they solve. My own Ethiopian father, for example, was much more involved in the upkeep of his home than I am. It would be erroneous to say that my grandparents abused him by forcing him to lift a finger in his house. Given that InterAid must deal with refugees from such diverse backgrounds, I can only hope that it makes cultural sensitivity a priority in all of its activities. Otherwise, I doubt that these Saturday morning lessons will accomplish much.