Thousands of children from northern Uganda are being forced to take up arms and serve as sexual slaves by an obscure rebel group which aims to rule Uganda in accordance with the Ten Commandments.
Most of those abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and turned into child soldiers are aged between 13 and 16. The young people, say two newly-published human rights reports, are made to take part in combat, act as personal servants and, in the case of girls, to serve as "wives" to rebel commanders.
Between 5,000 and 8,000 youths have been forcibly conscripted in the past three years, according to Amnesty International. In its report, Breaking God's Commands: the Destruction of Childhood by the Lord's Resistance Army, Amnesty says children are being tortured, murdered and trained by the LRA to fight well-armed Ugandan troops.
Amnesty's findings are corroborated by those of the New York-based Human Rights Watch, which claims kidnapped children are forced to undergo brutal initiation ceremonies. These involve the beating and hacking to death of other child captives who have attempted to escape.
Using first-person testimonies from children who have escaped captivity, Amnesty paints a horrific picture of abuse and trauma. Children who refuse to comply with rebel commands are starved, raped and whipped.
"The commander gave us husbands, except for the young ones, those below 13," says one former child soldier. "But from 13 onwards, we were all given as wives. There was no marriage ceremony. But if you refuse, you are killed." The abduction of girls and their forced marriage to more senior LRA soldiers is the cornerstone of the movement's internal organisation, says Amnesty.
Girls are allocated as a reward and incentive for male soldiers. "If a husband gets tired of his wife, he gets rid of her and she is given to someone else," says a counsellor working with former child soldiers in Uganda. "Within a one-year period, girls would have seen many husbands."
When medically examined, nearly all female escapers are found to have syphilis or other sexually-transmitted diseases. Counsellors say that all kidnapped girls eventually fall victim to rape by the head of the LRA "family" to which they are allocated.
Committed to the overthrow of the government, the LRA is supported by the Islamic fundamentalist government of Sudan. The movement had been receiving arms from Khartoum in return for helping in attacks against Sudanese People's Liberation Army rebels in southern Sudan.
However, military sources in Uganda say the Sudanese authorities have recently cut off supplies to the LRA, forcing hundreds of them back into Uganda. Among those said to have been turned back is their leader, Mr Joseph Kony, a catechist and herbalist who has given himself the rank of major general and, as a mark of his status, 30 wives.