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"Ododo Wa" Community Dialogues

Video Evelyn Amony, Grace Acan, and Isabelle Masson on Advocating for Justice and Reparations in Uganda

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1. Video Evelyn Amony, Grace Acan, and Isabelle Masson on Advocating for Justice and Reparations in Uganda
Contents of this annotation:
1. Video Evelyn Amony, Grace Acan, and Isabelle Masson on Advocating for Justice and Reparations in Uganda
Contents of this annotation:
1. Video Evelyn Amony, Grace Acan, and Isabelle Masson on Advocating for Justice and Reparations in Uganda

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Survivor-Centred Approaches
The Ododo Wa exhibit has been situated within a survivor centred approach by several of our media sources. YorkU’s yFile places the exhibit within the context of United Nations Security Council’s adoption of Resolution 2467 on 23 April 2019. This resolution “articulates a survivor-centred approach to the prevention and response to conflict-related sexual violence.” Like this resolution, the exhibit prioritizes a survivor-centred approach, meaning that survivors are empowered to seek justice and reparations.

News media has similarly situated the exhibit as timely, and its association with dialogues for survivors as necessary. For example, the arts magazine GalleriesWest places the exhibit in relation to the Nobel Peace Prize winners, Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad, and their efforts against the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war. This is also shown in the University of Manitoba’s news, which represents the exhibit in the context of Uganda’s transitional justice policy of June 2019.

The curatorial approach to the exhibit was also based on a survivor-centred approach. For example, CMHR curator Isabelle Masson acknowledges that for activists organizing around issues of sexual violence in war, it is important to reduce opportunities of re-traumatization or even further traumatization (Bitu Tshikudi, 2019). For these reasons, the exhibit aims to establish a sustainable and supportive storytelling process and environment that focuses on survivors’ needs, their voices, and their leadership towards justice and reparations.

Naturally, a place-based tension emerges in response to the exhibit. As Masson reflected on the Uganda National Museum event in December 2019, one audience member asked “Why do we need Canadians to tell our stories?” (Masson, 2020). In relation, Canadian journalists and artists sometimes asserted that it was difficult to “imagine” what Acan and Amony went through (Alfa, 2019; Ikemiya, 2019). In some cases, Canadian journalists asked, “What can Canadians do to help?” (Bitu Tshikudi, 2019). Acan, Amony and those involved with making the exhibit asserted that Canadians can help by a) listening to survivors, b) paying attention to survivors’ leadership in regards to their needs, and c) seeing how one can help, as directed by survivors, “at this moment” (Masson in Bitu Tshikudi, 2019). Therefore, the exhibit appears to have multiple capacities: it functions as an example of survivor-centred activism that holds opportunities for survivor-centred knowledge mobilization, learning, pedagogy, dialogue, and justice.
Breaking the Silence Through Storytelling and Artefacts
Several of the sources took up the topic of “voice” in their reportage. For example, Ugandan and Canadian news media represent Grace Acan and Evelyn Amony as “breaking the silence” about their experiences. The Winnipeg Free Press characterized Acan and Amony as "outspoken." This framing falls in line with popular media representations of other survivors of sexual violence who are speaking out about their experiences and their needs for justice and reparations.
The artifacts featured in the exhibit functions as evidence supporting Acan's and Amony's stories. Ugandan-based New Vision, which covered the exhibit’s launch at the Uganda National Museum in December 2019, makes note of the artifacts, such as “clothes, books, and other items,” featured in the traveling exhibit. The artifacts represent the everyday and material realities of Acan and Amony before, after, and during their time in captivity, while memorializing personal, regional, and national histories. By memorializing Acan’s and Amony’s experiences and their material realities, the exhibit helps “send a universal message that the voices of women in war matters” (Acan quoted in The Independent, 2019).

The artefacts also provide a way for Amony and Acan to discuss having children and meeting their children’s needs while in captivity. Although “the guns are silent” and the region is considered in a post-conflict period, survivors challenge the notion that the war is over and point to the multi-generational impacts of the war within families and communities (Acan quoted in Bunting, 2019).
When speaking about her daughter, whom she was separated from during a military ambush, Evelyn Amony shares that, “Other women in the world are still crying for their daughters […] My daughter is still missing […] I still have hope for her.” Evelyn Amony to Carol Sanders, Winnipeg Free Press.
Journalists picked up on the fact that for Acan and Amony and many other survivors, the conflict does not “end” simply because they have returned. While in conversation with Acan and Amony, Ismaila Alfa stated that “It is not over at that point in time [when you return after captivity], because now you have to get used to life back in Uganda as well.”
Justice for Survivors

Acan’s and Amony’s experiences as girls caught between rebel and state forces informs their perspective on war. Sexual violence and conjugal slavery remain neglected parts of armed conflict and there continues to be barriers for justice for survivors. Even though survivors’ experiences of abduction and captivity are different and unique, the Conjugal Slavery in War (CSiW) partnership has found many similarities. These similarities are especially noticeable particularly regarding the stigma survivors face (Bitu Tshikudi, 2019).
However, in Acan’s and Amony’s statements to the news media, their message goes far beyond advocating for justice and reparations. They argue for sustained movements for peace and the abolition of war. The instrumentalization of women and girls in armed conflict has been an important tactic used to sustain social reproduction within the LRA and to push the LRA message (Bitu Tshikudi, 2019).

In there conversations with news media, both Acan and Amony explain how they were misrecognized by the Ugandan government through its amnesty mechanism. In a CBC Day 6 (2019) piece, the article states:
“The [amnesty] card is meted out to LRA fighters who are forgiven for fighting against the government of Uganda. It’s hard to see what exactly she’s being forgiven for, Amony said. ‘It [was] not our will to be in the bush,’ Amony clarified. And Acan stated that, ‘My life was destroyed. I didn’t hold a gun against the government, so why should I sign that I fought against the government?’ [...] ‘There was no government to protect me, to bring me back’” (2019).
While justice is an important area of focus for survivors, Ugandan news media did not engage with themes surrounding amnesty and other barriers to justice. Instead, they focused on other urgent issues that speak to Acan’s and Amony’s message - that is, the healing that needs to be fostered in their local, regional, and national contexts. For Acan and Amony, their messages in Ugandan news media are directed to other survivors of war who are struggling in silence.