Why Uganda?

For the past 23 years, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has been fighting the government of Uganda. The war has been considered one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world today. An entire generation has never known peace.

At one point, more than 1.8 million people - or 80 percent of the population in northern Uganda - were forced to flee their homes and live in squalid displacement camps with limited services. Protecting the people, especially the children, has not been a priority for the government, despite national and international laws guaranteeing their basic rights.

Throughout the conflict, LRA leader Joseph Kony has created his army primarily through the violent abduction and forced enlistment of children. More than 30,000 children have been kidnapped by the LRA and forced to be soldiers, laborers, and - in the case of girls - sexual slaves.

During the height of insecurity, the lack of civilian protection in villages and displacement camps created the phenomenon of "night commuters". Every night in northern Uganda, tens of thousands of children walk for several miles to urban centers to sleep, in the hopes of avoiding violence and abduction by the LRA. This practice has stopped due to improved security in northern Uganda.

Despite the improved stability, almost half of the displaced civilians still remain in camps. They now face the difficult decision of whether to leave the crowded and disease-ridden camps for the uncertainty of life back home, where basic services such as schools, clean water, and health clinics are rare.

A ceasefire agreement was brokered in August 2006 between the Ugandan government and the LRA. Security in northern Uganda has increased, but the LRA is now attacking and abducting civilians in eastern Congo.

A health crisis still exists in Uganda today, as children have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS and thousands of women die annually in childbirth. 1.2 million children have been orphaned by AIDS. Approximately 42 million children do not have access to education, clean water, or adequate nutrition. These children live in poverty and many remain under constant threat of the rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), who continue to wage war in the north despite cease-fire and peace agreements. The war, one of the most brutal of modern times, has led to the displacement of 1.8 million people and the abduction of 30,000 children for use as child soldiers and sex slaves.