Maurine Akello has done what adults have not been able to do. But then again, who has suffered as much as these bush-girls forced into sexual-slavery in a civil-war torn Uganda. Akello has set up a peer-driven empowering agency, Empowering Hands, for girls like her. ABC News reports that she and four other founding members of the group are in New York now, presenting the woes of Ugandan childhood amongst war-lords. They are a solemn group.
Akello had an abusive childhood and at 16, when she escaped her captors, she was carrying a rape-child. Sarah Nightly had been kidnapped at eleven. Her nightmares had just only started. This recruitment of children for carnality is a growing trend all over the globe.
There is the Sri Lanka LTTE, the Burmese military juntas who all ostensibly employ kids as soldiers and then abuse them. The Ugandan soldiers are one step ahead of this lot of pedophilic soldiers. In Uganda nobody bothers to hide the true reason why young girls are recruited in the army. But one wonders at the UN, why have they done nothing so far to help the kids-in-crises in Africa? It is all very well that at least now these suffering girls have been asked to come and be honored by the UN. The nagging thought remains that why this delay in listening to children all over the world? Why can the UN not go to the girls?
The reasons are simple and obvious to the point of being missed. First, children do not vote for any government and are voiceless in every possible manner. They just do not exist for most adults. The US does not care about black, poor grown ups from non-oil rich countries, leave alone children.
Moreover, US squarely controls the UN and thus none cares about these kids. As long as the American child is fine no horror is tragic enough for the US to react. The next issue is the award of the Empowering Hands. This is only a symbolic gesture. The white conscience needs to shed some guilt for its long neglect of non-white children throughout the globe.
What better way will that be to invite destitute Ugandan girls and make a show of honoring them? Let us not forget that US did nothing about the adult women in Taliban-Afghanistan till Osama bombed the twin towers. This honor and concern for the girls from Uganda is just another way to neglect children. May be, Akello will see through the trick and return to her home a wiser woman. What she is doing is the right way for all those who suffer in this world. There is no help ever from others. Only resilience and a desire to be free from tyranny remains till the end.
Via: ABC News
Image: Europa
