ABDUCTED GIRLS ARE NOT REBEL WIVES
By Alex B. Atuhaire, Bombo

December 9, 2003 – (The Monitor - Kampala) The state minister for Defence has ordered the army to stop referring to rescued girls as former wives of rebel commanders.

Ms Ruth Nankabirwa said such references could traumatize the girls, who were forced to marry the rebel commanders of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

"It has never been their [girls] wish that they get married to those commanders. I want to ask my commanders to change the language of reporting," she said at the army general headquarters in Bombo.

She was speaking after signing a memorandum of understanding between the UPDF and Save the Children, Denmark.

Ms Susanne Kirk Christensen, the Country Director of Save the Children Denmark, said the three-year funding deal, would help the army strengthen its child protection unit, especially in the north.

The Joseph Kony led LRA rebels have been fighting government forces in northern Uganda for over a decade now.

Nankabirwa said that most of the LRA fighters are children who have been conscripted into the rebel army.

From: http://allafrica.com/stories/200312090100.html