CHRISTIAN KIDNAPPINGS OF CHILDREN AS SEX SLAVES MAR AFRICA'S DAY OF THE CHILD

Abuctions Mar African Child Day Celebrations
New Vision (Kampala) via All Africa
June 17, 2003
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Kampala

Uganda yesterday marked the Day of the African Child amid reports that the country has 1.3 million AIDS and war orphans, while thousands more are in rebel captivity.

Save the Children Norway estimates that nearly 20,000 children have been abducted by the rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda and that 5,000 were taken captive by the rebels last year alone.

Statistics also indicate that 1.3 million children are orphans, having lost their parents either in the civil wars or to the AIDS epidemic that has killed almost a million people in Uganda since it was first diagnosed in the early 1980s.

Uganda has, however, managed to reduce HIV/AIDS infection rates from 30 to 6% between 1990 and 2002.

The LRA kidnaps children and forces young boys to fight for them and girls to become concubines for rebel commanders.

Save the Children quoted rescued children as telling stories of abuse and horror during their time in rebel captivity and particularly when the army confronted rebels moving with groups of abducted children.

"In captivity, children are forced to kill their own kin and are systematically abused, both physically and sexually," Save the Children said in a statement released here on Monday.

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