Watchlist

The signature of an Action Plan between the UN and the UPDF (Ugandan armed forces) and its subsequent implementation and verification have led to the delisting of the UPDF and the Local Defence Units associated to it. The Action Plan led to the demobilization and reintegration of children who had previously joined the UPDF and the LDU. There was no policy of child recruitment by the Ugandan armed forces, but lack of monitoring allowed situations where children voluntarily joined local armed forces to prevail. While the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has not been active in Uganda territory since 2006, the origins of the group are rooted in Uganda and the UPDF plays a crucial role in conducting joint operations against the LRA in neighboring countries, where the group has been abducting children for the purposes of forced recruitment and use in combat and committing rape a sexual violence. In this context, there are child protection concerns regarding, in particular, the slow progress made in terms of release, repatriation and support to children formerly abducted by the LRA, as well as the reported use of those children for intelligence purposes by the UPDF.