"Children of the Enemy"

C-Fam is hosting an important panel next week, which will be chaired by local writer and human rights activist Dr Susan Yoshihara. She writes: Among the hundreds of Christians and minorities abducted by Islamic State terrorists are women and girls forced into marriage and sexual slavery. As world leaders fumble to respond to ISIS attacks, another crisis looms – the perilous future of these women and girls and the children they will conceive during captivity. Having researched the topic thoroughly, she is familiar with many historical examples, and since rape as a tool of war is nothing new we know two important facts: such children suffer tremendously because of the circumstances of their conception; and most aid programs do little to help them because they are not technically "survivors" of the conflicts. While tight-knit families and long-standing cultures have their strengths, they rarely welcome those whom they see as "children of the enemy" because of the shame that attaches to them and their mothers. One presenter will offer her own research from Africa: Eunice Apio has been working for more than a decade in Northern Uganda with women abducted by the guerilla group Lord’s Resistance Army and with their children...