Invisible Children

Who:

·         The invisible children are children in Africa who have been abducted by Joseph Kony’s army. They are abducted during the night from villages without a large population, making it harder to defend themselves and their children from the abductors. These children are desensitized to violence and taught how to kill and sneak into schools to take other children for the child army.

What:

·         The child soldiers that are abducted from Ugandan villages are taught to fight and kill. They are also taught to sneak into schools and villages and take more children into the army. With children constantly moving about as they travel to and from the nearby towns and cities at night for protection no one notices an extra child or two entering the village that day. All these children know is how to hold a gun and kill.

When:

·         This has been going on for the past 17 years of the Uganda rebellion. The rebel group, led by Joseph Kony, has been abducting children to use in their army as soldiers. The children comprise a vast majority of the rebel force and are very dangerous soldiers because they have to kill in order to not get beaten by their adult captors and they were raised to fight from the young age at which they were abducted.

Where:

·         All of the abductions, as well as the fighting, have taken place in Uganda, Africa. At the beginning of the rebellion Kony’s cousin claimed to be possessed by a spirit that was telling her to overthrow the government; upon her death Kony took over and began the child abductions. Kony and his rebel army live out in the desert or the dense rain-forest  nearly inaccessible places. They train the children in the desert, where it is nearly impossible to escape because of the lack of water and places to hide from the soldiers.

Why:

·         The rebels believe that a war is the only way to bring about a change in the Ugandan governmental system. They use the children because they are easy to control with a few adults. Children also have modifiable minds, they can be taught that killing is what they are supposed to do and that’s it. Children require fewer resources than adults in terms of food, water, shelter, and clothing.