It would be nice if there was a happy ending to every story we have to tell in our Christmas Appeal for the work of the children\u2019s charity Unicef in the rescue and rehabilitation of boy soldiers and girl sex slaves from armed militias in Africa. But real life is not always like that.<\/p>\n
Take the case of the girl who is, perhaps ironically, called Hope. When Unicef allows journalists access to rescued children it always gives them pseudonyms. That is because fitting them back into family and village life can be hard because many of the children were forced by marauding gunmen to commit atrocities in the places from which they were seized \u2013 either that or be killed themselves. It is best, on their return, if the full horror of their stories is not associated with rescued individuals.<\/p>\n
Hope was just 11 years old when she was seized by drug-crazed gunmen from the quasi-religious Lord\u2019s Resistance Army which rampages across the central of Africa from South Sudan to the Central African Republic \u2013 which is where Independent<\/em> reader\u2019s donations are currently funding the work of child rescue.<\/p>\n Some 64 children saved from rebel warlords are currently being cared for by Unicef in the CAR capital, Bangui. But it was from a village in South Sudan that Hope was abducted. \u201cI cried for so long when my little girl was abducted,\u201d her mother Mary said. Neighbours tried to console her and told her to pray, but there was nothing that would help.<\/p>\n Then one day Mary was listening to the radio and heard her little girl\u2019s name being announced \u2013 FM radio announcements are one of the ways in which Unicef and its partners help reunite rescued child soldiers with their families. This was the last thing Mary had been expecting. Hope had been gone two long years and her mother feared that she would never see the child ever again.<\/p>\n Early the next morning the whole family gathered and went to the transit camp mentioned on the radio. But Hope was not at the transition centre. She had been shot in the leg during a gun battle with government troops, who eventually rescued her, and was now recovering in hospital.<\/p>\n \u201cI ran to the hospital and as soon as I saw her I started crying and hugged her,\u201d Mary said. \u201cThe joy when I saw her was so amazing, I didn\u2019t expect to see her again.\u201d<\/p>\n Mary was overjoyed to have her daughter home. Hope was overwhelmed at the reunion.<\/p>\n \u201cAt first sight of my mum I had tears in my eyes,\u201d the girl said.\u00a0\u00a0 I thought my mum was dead and I considered myself dead too. I thought I wouldn\u2019t survive.\u201d<\/p>\n Those early months brought euphoria. \u201cMy thinking changed,\u201d the 13-year-old said. \u201cIn the LRA all I was thinking about was death.\u00a0 But then those thoughts disappeared. With my family around me they made me happy. I stopped thinking about death.\u201d<\/p>\n Her mother\u2019s joy overflowed. She spoke of all the dreams she had for her daughter\u2019s future.<\/p>\n But as the days passed Mary came to realise that the girl who had come home was not the same child as the one abducted by the LRA two years earlier. \u00a0Hope had changed. From time to time she becomes very withdrawn. She has bursts of anger. Mood fluctuations are commonplace.<\/p>\n Her mother now realises how unprepared she was for how difficult it would be for her daughter to reintegrate back into village life after more than a year of violence and terror at the hands of the LRA.<\/p>\n Unicef\u2019s specialist psycho-social workers found that all the suffering the girl has been through repeatedly resurfaces into her consciousness, even though she is back home. Hope has survived the violence and brutality that she was forced to endure by becoming a different person, and now the challenge is to help her reverse that process.<\/p>\n Unicef provides transit centres from South Sudan to Central African Republic in which former child soldiers can be cared for after their release. At these centres the long process of healing psychological scars begins. But it takes work on both sides, and time. And as the case of Hope shows, the work is not always over after the children have been reunited with their families. The process can take months, and even years.<\/p>\n