UGANDA: Envoy emphasises government commitment to children

NAIROBI, 25 Oct 2001 (IRIN) - A Ugandan government diplomat to the United
Nations, Catherine Otiti, on Tuesday told a committee of the General
Assembly that "the rights of children are the supreme priority in all
programme processes in Uganda", and that the government was particularly
concerned about their situation in northern and western parts of the
country.

Thousands of children were victims of atrocities by the so-called Lord's
Resistance Army (LRA) in the north, and the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF)
in the west, Otiti said at a debate of Assembly's Third Committee, which
addresses Social, Humanitarian and Cultural issues.

One could only imagine what the plight of children abducted and terrorised
by these groups was like, she said, "and the only logical and factual
conclusion is that they face a despicable situation".

All children were innocent, and therefore all efforts should be employed
to save them, she added.

UNICEF has estimated that, of 30,839 people registered as having been
abducted between 1986 and 2001, many of them women and children, 79
percent originated in Gulu and Kitgum districts, northern Uganda.

The Ugandan government was working in close cooperation with the United
Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) to deliver some of those abducted
children to freedom but, most of the time, they could only leave captivity
by embarking on terribly risky escapes, Otiti said.

A total of 323 LRA abductees who had escaped in southern Sudan during
2000-01 have become part of a programme of repatriation to Uganda via
Khartoum, on the basis of an agreement between UNICEF, the International
Organisation for Migration (IOM), and the governments of Uganda and Sudan.

"Those who manage to escape leave behind thousands whose fate remains
unknown," according to Otiti.

The ADF, engaged in a guerrilla war against the government in the Rwenzori
mountains in Western Uganda since November 1996, has also been responsible
for many abuses against civilians, including killings, looting,
abductions, and physical abuse, according to to the US-based Human Rights
Watch. Like the LRA, the ADF has engaged in mass abductions of children.

The Ugandan official invited the UN Special Representative on Children and
Armed Conflict, Olara Otunnu, to visit Uganda.

At a broader level, Uganda had introduced a National Programme of Action
for Children (UNPAC) in 1992 in honour of the pledge it made to children
at the World Summit on Children in 1990, Otiti said.

The infant mortality rate in Uganda (under one year) is about 83 per 1,000
live births, according to the UNICEF report State of the World's Children
2001. This compares unfavourably with 76 per 1,000 in neighbouring Kenya
and 67 in Sudan, but favourably with 90 per 1,000 in Tanzania.

Under-five mortality stands at 131 in Uganda (per 1,000 live births),
compared to 118 in Kenya, 109 in Sudan and 141 in Tanzania.

About one quarter of children born in Uganda each year are moderately or
severely underweight, almost 40 percent suffer stunted growth as a result
of inadequate nutrition and, each year, Uganda has an estimated 142,000
deaths among children under five years, according to UNICEF statistics.

Life expectancy had been increasing in Uganda, but was recently revised
downwards from 54 to 43 years, largely because of the effects of HIV/AIDS,
the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Great Lakes)
reported earlier this month.

Visiting Uganda in August, Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of the United
Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), emphasised the particular need to
improve access to education - especially for the girl child - and to
improve HIV/AIDS education among children.

"Only education can empower young people with the knowledge they need to
protect themselves from infection," she said. "Only education can combat
the discrimination that helps perpetuate the pandemic. And only education
can help children and young people acquire the knowledge and develop the
skills they need to build a better future."

[ENDS]

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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2001