Women survivors and their children born of wartime sexual violence in northern Uganda

Women survivors and their children born of wartime sexual violence in northern Uganda

By Teddy Atim, Dyan Mazurana, Anastasia Marshak

Introduction

The focus on women survivors of wartime sexual violence has resulted in increased attention being paid to its long-term impact on their social acceptance in post-conflict environments. Coulter (2009) and Denov and Ricard-Guay (2013) are critical of the fact that discussions about these women have centred primarily on their marginality and vulnerability, overlooking their agency at times. Girls and women survivors of wartime sexual violence often are treated as a homogenous group; however, studies show that those who return from conflict with children born of war-related sexual violence experience more and different challenges than those who do not (McKay and Mazurana, 2004; Annan et al., 2008; Coulter, 2009).

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