Agentes Estimulantes de la Eritropoyesis

One partcular characterstc of the chldren who partcpated n the study s that they lved n abject poverty n the fetd over-crowded camps and cheaper suburbs of Gulu Muncpalty. They dd, however, get by through performng varous ncome generatng actvtes and survval strateges. To facltate a coherent presentaton of the emprcal data concernng chldren’s survval strateges, I categorse them nto constructve/postve and destructve/negatve practces. By postve practces I mean actvtes wth mnmal harmful unntended consequences, and whch are socally acceptable lvelhoods n wartme, such as leja leja, fetchng water for sale, smearng and thatchng other people’s huts for money and takng care of neghbours’ chldren. Meanwhle, negatve practces are those whch are harmful or had major negatve unntended consequences, and as such these actvtes are not socally acceptable. These nclude theft (although the chldren also often warned others of the dangers of theft), beggng, lyng, and chld prosttuton. Constructive survival strategies

Chldren performed varous ncome generatng actvtes such as fetchng water for sale, dong leja leja, carryng farm produce to the market, and for Oketch and hs famly, takng care of the property owner’s chld n order to get foodstuffs. In ths study’s prologue, whch presents an exemplary case, Ojok performed varous actvtes n order to enable hm to access basc needs. The actvtes ranged from dong leja leja, slashng the hosptal courtyard and boda boda (carryng people on a bcycle43_{) for money. Ajok elaborated}

on how she dealt wth daly challenges by performng ncome generatng actvtes as follows:

When I thnk that I have worked the whole day dong leja leja and I can only buy food for one day, pi loya (I am totally dscouraged or frustrated wth lvng). Ths s because all of us now have only torn clothes. I even fear washng my two ssters’ clothes because they wll get torn beyond repar f I dd that. Sometmes I just st and thnk about t untl I have a lot of headache. And n any case, can dek dwong ba (the problem of lack of food s enormous); there s no way I can use the lttle money we get from leja leja44_{to buy clothes. That s why t makes me angry}

each tme drty chldren at school are barred from enterng class; all of us [Ajok and her four sblngs] are always part of them.

43 _{There are varous ways an ndvdual could get a bcycle to do ths busness. Mostly, as n Ojok’s case, t was rented from relatvely} rcher people. The money earned durng the day would then be shared, or smply a small proporton of the earnngs would be gven to people lke Ojok at the end of each day.

44 _{This activity was particularly demanding since it involved moving to distant places to find where the peasant farmers needed extra} labour.

Through my personal contact wth ths famly, I observed that they dd ndeed wear torn clothes and often complaned of hunger and a lack of food. They would attend class wthout the basc scholastc materals, had a drty appearance, and frequently became sck wth easly preventable and curable llnesses. One chld from ths household even contracted tuberculoss.

In another narratve, Ojok sad that he had gone to Lacor, about 5km from Krombe, to do leja leja. A day’s labour was rewarded wth 1,500 Shllngs (0.62 Euro). For the same day’s labour n vllages neghbourng Gulu Muncpalty an adult would receve a mnmum of 5,000 Shllngs (2.17 Euro) – more than twce the amount pad to chldren. There was, therefore, a preference for usng chldren as labourers, though t was a frequent complant of the chldren’s that land owners declned or under pad them because of shoddy work, and clamed that they would have to get an adult labourer the next day to re-do the same work. Perhaps ths was due to ther feelng that chldren were unlkely to pursue legal procedures n demand for ther wages, and the stuaton was made more complex by weak or non-exstent legal structures n Gulu durng the tme of the study.

Fetching water for sale

A substantal proporton of chldren mentoned fetchng and sellng water as a survval strategy, especally n the suburbs wthn Gulu Muncpalty – ncludng Krombe, Pece, Kanyagoga, and Cereleno – which had insufficient water supply at the time of this study. Regardless of the dstance to the water sources, a twenty ltre Jercan of water wll cost 50 or 100 Shllngs (0.021 or 0.043 Euros). Some chldren stll preferred to fetch water from much dstant water sources snce the closest ones frequently had more people and longer waiting times, however it was, of course, difficult to fetch more than ten Jericans of water for sale n one day from such a dstance. A few chldren also ndcated rare opportuntes for fetchng water for hut bulders or other constructon stes where they earned more ncome.

Smearing and thatching people’s huts

Wartme chldren, especally grls, would smear huts for other people at a fee. Ths was, however, a rsky actvty snce some chldren were subsequently exposed to gender based volence, ncludng rape. I wll come back to ths pont, and provde examples from chldren’s narratves whch descrbe extreme experences. Boys manly collected

grass from dstant vllages to sell to property owners, but sometmes they also thatched huts at an addtonal fee.

Small scale trade

A substantal proporton of chldren engaged n small scale trade. One chld dscussed extensvely how wth a day’s meagre earnngs she and her four sblngs would purchase sugarcanes whch they would carry over a dstance of about 5km n order to sell them. For this they would make a ‘profit’ of 300-500 Shillings (0.13-0.2 Euro), much to my surprise. Thrteen year old Oketch would take care of her landlady’s chld as she conducted her small scale busness, n exchange for a day’s meal.

In seven focus group dscussons and ntervews, the chldren revealed some of the difficulties involved in engaging in small scale trade; for example, they would invest ther meagre day’s earnngs nto a busness prospect, but would lose ther money when people did not buy their commodities. One fifteen year old boy discussed his difficulties n conductng small scale trade as follows:

…..When I came back to Kirombe, I revived my business of selling boiled eggs, paraffin, and salt.

My uncle kept borrowng money from me wthout repayng t, untl the busness collapsed. Ffteen year old Omony would carry farm produce for peasants to the market, and sometimes his wage labour involved carrying firewood for small scale traders from neghbourng vllages to the market. A day’s labour would earn hm 1,500 Shllngs, regardless of the demands requred of the work, and yet – to gve the reader an mpresson of the meagreness of such earnings – such an amount was only sufficient to purchase one meal n the cheapest restaurant n Gulu Town at the tme of study n 2005.

A randomized controlled study by Bolton et al. (2006) which was conducted in Gulu dstrct suggested that there was a lnk between partcpaton n Interpersonal Group Therapy (IPT-G) and economic wellbeing. However, from my research I did not find the clamed lnks. There was no sngle chld who mentoned the need for group therapes n order to ensure ther economc wellbeng. It s probable that ndeed Interpersonal Group Therapies “helped children to figure out ways of earning money or start income generating actvtes; reducng ther thoughts of sucde…” (Bolton et al. 2006:29), but nevertheless the validity of such findings are, to my mind, quite doubtful, principally because there are difficulties in linking the aims of counsellng and talk therapes for adolescents wth ways of addressng ther soco-economc needs.

Destructive coping strategies

The following findings were not explicitly discussed by wartime children, however through observaton at the nght commuters’ shelters I noted how many men, ncludng polcemen, UPDF solders, bcycle men, and small scale busnessmen, often converged on these places to pick up girls willing to have sex for money. In one locally publicized ncdent, a polceman was transferred to another dstrct as a result of the communty’s outcry over the fact that he had raped a grl at a publc pt latrne at Kaunda grounds – an epcentre for nght commuters’ shelters. Other people, however, argued that such a phenomenon was not new snce a substantal number of grls engaged n sex for money. Perhaps, they suggested, the concerned grl had rased the alarm because she was not pad. Durng a focus group dscusson a vgnette was presented portrayng a scenaro at Kaunda grounds, n whch nght commutng boys and securty personnel exploted grls; the chldren exctedly dscussed what they often ‘saw those people (manly securty personnel) dong wth grls who sell ther bodes wthout shame’. One twelve year old boy dsclosed how:

….wth people comng from the vllages, especally grls, they see many nce thngs n the town. They also want to have them, and therefore they sell ther body n order to get the money.

The vgnette below features a chld lvng n abject poverty, confrontng hunger due to lack of food and basc needs. The chldren were called upon n nformal group dscussons and focus group dscussons to consder how they would advse such a chld.

Bongomn always comes late to school. Ths s because he comes from very far and he just walks that long dstance. Bongomn stays only wth hs younger brothers and ssters. He has no parents. He does not eat anythng before comng to school. When t s tme for break, Bongomn just plays wth frends. He has nothng to eat as well. And when food s not cooked at school,

he just stays hungry. Now when Bongomin goes home, he has to fetch water, light a fire, and prepares food for himself and his sisters. He has to sleep early because they do not have paraffin

for ther lamp. Bongomn and all hs ssters share one mat and blanket…

In twelve out of fifteen focus group discussions, children of all ages advised the child in the vgnette not to steal. Below s the response of one twelve year old chld:

Stealng s a bad thng, snce people n the camps can be very cruel and tell hm to leave the camp. In Pece, there was a latin kwan moo (a school gong chld) about fourteen years old, who was always stealng people’s food and anythng from neghbours. He was only rescued from death by polce when one tme people lad a trap for hm wth food. When he went to pck t, those who were watchng started screamng and called others to beat hm up. It was because people were tred of hm pckng ther clothes, food, and sometmes he could steal all the food someone had just collected from World Food Programme (Feld notes, December 2005).

Subsequently, in all fifteen focus group discussions, the children discussed their experences of lvng n abject poverty, whch was charactersed by lack and an nablty to secure even food and other basc needs. In the man, however, chldren mentoned beggng from other chldren, especally those of the property owners, for the thngs they needed. In one focus group discussion, five twelve to fourteen year old boys disclosed how they would deceve ther landlord’s chldren by sayng that they had been sent by the landlord to collect certan tems. More commonly, f the chldren notced that a new person was nteractng wth other chldren, mmedately t was nterpreted as an NGO representatve recrutng vulnerable chldren for an upcomng project; they would then try to enrol themselves on the project as well. I had to deal wth ths ssue personally, snce even the teachers and head teachers of dsplaced prmary schools tred to draw my attenton to chldren they regarded as partcularly vulnerable and who needed to be registered, not only to participate in my research but also to benefit from an upcoming NGO I mght create. I wll return to ths ssue n subsequent chapters.

In sum, I have shed lght on wartme chldren’s stressful lvng condtons. The categorsaton of chldren’s survval strateges nto constructve and destructve strateges s not meant to suggest dfferences n chldren’s morals, but has been done for coherence’s sake, largely because t was common for an ndvdual chld to engage n both constructve and destructve survval strateges. Further, t s very mportant to note that t was the contexts n whch chldren lved whch forced them to engage n such negatve copng strateges, and yet – as the chldren themselves dsclosed – t exposed them to such thngs as HIV/AIDS, hostle treatment by neghbours, evctons, and ncarceratons n Gulu muncpal juvenle prsons.