Over the past two decades of civil war in Uganda more than 60,000 children and young people have been abducted to fight with the rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). There are now thousands of ex-combatants. What are the long term effects of military service on the former abductees?

Research from an economist at the Center for Global Development and Yale University, USA, examines the long-term effects of military participation. The research is based on a survey of more than 741 youth, including 462 former recruits, in Uganda.

The LRA began fighting in Uganda in 1988 and abducted children and young people from the outset.

From 1996, LRA rebel activity and abductions increased dramatically; a result of support from the Sudanese government.

The research shows that the main impact of military participation is loss of human capital: abductees miss out on education and training, and damage their health from injuries sustained during fighting. As a result, former abductees are roughly half as likely to get skilled work later in life as non-abductees. Their average wage is also reduced by a third.

In contrast, the research shows that political participation seems to increase as a result of abduction. This may be because negative experiences (such as abduction and violence) motivate people to political action in order to express frustration.

Perhaps surprisingly, psychological impacts for ex-combatants are moderate. They are no more likely to experience social exclusion and aggression than those not involved in the war. These are important findings not only for their own sake, but also because aggression and political exclusion can delay peace-building processes.

The key findings of the research include:

• The main impact of abduction is on education and earnings: a direct result of time spent with the LRA rather than in school or gaining employment experience.
• Younger abductees are most likely to miss school as a result of abduction.
• Abductees are nearly twice as likely to be functionally illiterate (unable to read a book or newspaper) than non-abductees.
• Former abductees are more than twice as likely to have suffered a serious injury.
• Former abductees are much more likely to participate in community and political life: they are one quarter more likely to vote and are twice as likely to hold a voluntary community leadership position.
• While average psychological impact is not large, serious distress is concentrated in those that experienced extreme violence: about a sixth of abductees.

The research shows that the biggest impacts of abduction were economic and educational. Yet the emphasis of current post-conflict policy in Uganda is on the psychosocial reintegration of child soldiers (dealing with their traumatisation by war violence). More research from zones of conflict and a move towards evidence-based policy in post-conflict reintegration and peace-building is needed.

The following interventions could more directly address the needs identified in Uganda:

• accelerated adult literacy programmes
• support for private vocational training
• expanded access to land and agricultural improvement services
• training and small grants for micro-enterprise development.

Source(s):
‘The Consequences of Child Soldiering’, Households in Conflict Network (HiCN) Working Paper 22, by Christopher Blattman, 2006 (PDF) Full document.

Funded by: (via the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center), the Russell Sage Foundation, the International Peace Research Association Foundation, the UC Berkeley Center for African Studies, the UC Berkeley Institute for Economic and Business Research, Indiana University’s Graduate School,  the United States Institute of Peace, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the Academic Council on the United Nations System

id21 Research Highlight: 15 August 2007

Further Information:
Christopher Blattman
Center for Global Development
1776 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Suite 301
Washington, DC 20036
USA

Tel: +1 510 207 6352
Contact the contributor: blattman@cgdev.org

Center for Global Development, USA

Households in Conflict Network
Institute of Development Studies
University of Sussex
Falmer, Brighton BN1 9RE
UK

Tel: +44 (0)1273 873256
Fax: +44 (0)1273 621202
Contact the contributor: info@hicn.org

Households in Conflict Network, UK