“I really hated this man at first, but there was no way I could escape from him. With time, I started developing some love for him because he was always with me. He was kind so I accepted him into my life. I even decided not to return home if I ever got the chance. I conceived and gave birth to a baby girl. Then one day, the Ugandan Army (UPDF) invaded our camps forcing us to flee. I was separated from my husband. It was so hard fending for my child alone in Sudan that I decided to escape across the border back into Uganda." Betty was abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel group when she was 16 years old and taken along with other children to an LRA base in south Sudan and given a ‘husband’ – an LRA fighter - on arrival. The LRA regularly abduct children for use as fighters, porters and ‘wives’ in their combat against the Ugandan government. The Italian aid agency AVSI is helping to re-integrate former child soldiers in northern Uganda into family and society. Betty is now one of about 1400 children benefiting from this project.