ANENO MARGARET
After she was abducted from her school at age 11, Margaret spent nine years in the LRA. She was constantly sent into armed battle, forced to abduct other children and survived a cholera outbreak. She was raped repeatedly and had two children as a result. Margaret was finally rescued by government soldiers who found her injured and left for dead. Margaret was in hospitals and rehabilitation centers for over a year. As a result of her trauma, Margaret had a mental breakdown and was briefly living on the streets. During that time she was raped again, which produced her final child Hope.
Margaret is missing her left forearm. She lost it when a gunshot wound turned into gangrene. Quite literally, Margaret has to care for her children single-handedly. “Sometimes I feel so weak because I can’t farm, I can’t work. But I also feel proud because I often do just as many things as women with two arms can.”
Before she found IGAP, Margaret was chronically depressed and anxious about her family’s survival. “But now I feel much relieved. Here my friends give me advice and I can forget my problems.” Now Margaret is doing well, living with her children and dreaming someday of buying her own land so she can build a home.
After she was abducted from her school at age 11, Margaret spent nine years in the LRA. She was constantly sent into armed battle, forced to abduct other children and survived a cholera outbreak. She was raped repeatedly and had two children as a result. Margaret was finally rescued by government soldiers who found her injured and left for dead.