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.

Week 3 - Kampala's Urban Refugees

Location: Kampala, Uganda

Background

Even before learning that I had been accepted to this program, I knew that my independent research project would in some way focus on refugees. Since 1990 alone, Uganda has hosted an estimated 200,000 refugees (Orach, Dubourg, and De Brouwere). Given Uganda’s status as a ‘haven’ for displaced persons and asylum seekers, I have been presented with and invaluable opportunity to learn from and interact with refugees from all over East Africa. Though individuals from neighboring Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda comprise the vast majority of said refugees, recent years have seen an increase in refugees from Burundi, Kenya, and Somalia as well (UNHCR).

Though the majority of refugees in Uganda—around 80 percent—live in “post-emergency phase settlements” in the West Nile districts of Adjumani, Arua and Moyo, my research for this project caused me to become intrigued by those who have chosen to defy this trend. With numbers surpassing 15,000, these urban refuges (largely escapees from wars in Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi, the DRC, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia) are becoming an evermore-visible feature of Kampala (Orach, Dubourg, and De Brouwere; Macchiavello).

First Impressions of InterAid Uganda

After an arduous struggle with the “refugee bureaucracy” that is headed by UNHCR and the Office of the Prime Minister, I was finally granted permission to observe the activities of InterAid Uganda. As its implementing partner, InterAid Uganda LTD provides the services to Kampala’s refugees that an already overextended UNHCR simply does not have the capacity to deliver. As InterAid is technically a non-governmental organization, I was surprised that I had to jump though so many governmental hoops to gain this approval. Nonetheless, I am relieved that I have at last found an NGO that can assist me in my quest to learn about the struggles of urban refugees.

Among many other services, InterAid provides its clients with counseling on the process of gaining asylum, medication, skills training, and small loans. Though I wholeheartedly believe that InterAid is doing great work, the process by which it carries out its work troubles me in a way. In order to keep certain groups from feeling underserved, InterAid designates a specific day of the week to each refugee nationality. For example, the InterAid Urban Refuge Programme Office will only receive Congolese on Mondays (there are exceptions in cases of emergencies) while it will only see Eritreans and Sudanese on Wednesdays. Though InterAid seems to be trying its best to manage its extremely limited resources, this system leaves Kampala’s large Congolese population at a disadvantage. In order to make sure that they may be seen on their designated day, Congolese refugees must arrive at the Urban Refuge Programme when its doors open at 8:00AM, meaning that they must skip out on work and other obligations so that they can wait all day without any guarantee of being seen. If they are unable to get helped during their designated time, they must wait until the next week so that they can play the waiting day all over again. Though this study is still at an early stage, the difficulties faced by the urban refugees and the aid workers serve them in Kampala are already becoming very apparent. This project is picking up speed, and I look forward to continuing my research at InterAid.

References

-Macchiavello, Michela. "Livelihoods strategies of urban refugees in Kampala." Forced Migration Review 20 (2001): 26-27. Print.
-Orach, Christopher Garimoi, and Vincent De Brouwere. "Integrating refugee and host health services in West Nile districts, Uganda." Health Policy and Planning 21.1 (2005): 53-64. Print.
-UNCHR. "2010 UNHCR country operations profile - Uganda.". UN. Web. 21 Feb. 2010.