Children 'born of war

A Role for Fathers

Bibliographic Data

ID4034563
AuthorsCamile Oliveira, Erin Baines (0000-0003-2930-5943)
Year2020
Volume96
Issue2
Pages439-455
Publication date2020-03-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Affairs (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-5850 • E-ISSN: 1468-2346
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/ia/iiaa007
OpenAlexW3006333574
LanguageEN
Citations received19

In this article, we examine exceptional circumstances in which men who father children born as the result of conflict-related sexual violence assume full or partial responsibility for their child's well-being. Children 'born of war' are increasingly recognized as a particular victim group in relevant international policy frameworks. Their social status falls somewhere between the victimization of their mother and perpetration of their father. Given the circumstances of their birth, they often experience social rejection and loss of identity with a long-term impact on their well-being. Previous scholarship has primarily documented the challenges faced by their mothers as caregivers and as victims of wartime sexual violence. A discussion on fathers to children 'born of war' is absent, attributable not only to their perpetrator status, but also to the assumption that their identity is unknown or that a relationship between father and child is undesired. The article demonstrates this is not always the case. Based on research in northern Uganda between 2016 and 2019 which included interviews and focus group discussions with former male combatants in the rebel group the Lord's Resistance Army, we explore how some fathers seek to maintain a relationship with children born as the result of 'forced marriage' and assume partial or full responsibility for their well-being and care

Criminology · Developmental psychology · Identity (music) · Political science · Scholarship · Sexual violence · Sociology · Gender Studies · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Law · Migration, Health and Trauma · Peacebuilding and International Security · Psychology · Social Psychology

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