Uganda: 'Rape Was On a Daily Basis,' Former Child Sex Slave Tells Angelina Jolie

A former child sex slave told on Wednesday how she was kidnapped from her home in Uganda, tied up with other children and marched barefoot hundreds of miles to Sudan where she was repeatedly raped until she could barely move.

Esther Ruth Atim told a global summit on sexual violence in conflict she was kidnapped at nine and brutalised for three years by rebels from the notorious Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) during its two-decade guerrilla war in northern Uganda.

"I cannot count how many times I was raped in Sudan by the LRA rebels," Esther told a session attended by actress Angelina Jolie and British Foreign Secretary William Hague who are co-hosting the conference.

"Rape was on a daily basis. I was raped so I couldn't even move ... like a normal (person) ... I could only move like a jumping frog."

Esther said girls abducted by the LRA still faced stigmatisation after returning home to their communities and were struggling to survive after missing out on education.

She called on the Ugandan government to provide education, training, financial support and protection for former LRA abductees and the children they bore in captivity.

The LRA, led by warlord Joseph Kony, kidnapped thousands of children during the conflict which spread to neighbouring countries. Children were used as soldiers, porters, cooks and sex slaves.

Esther was abducted at night from a village in Kaberamaido District in eastern Uganda in 2003.

"We were taken like slave trade with ropes tied tight on the waist," said Esther who still has marks from where ropes were also tied round her arms.

The LRA told her they would her kill if she attempted to escape. One man who tried to flee was butchered in front of Atim and other children.

The captives often moved under cover of night in the long march north. "Children were dying like flies," she said.

"Our clothes were all torn. We were moving barefoot in coldness, in rain, in sunshine. We walked (through) big bushes ... We crossed lakes, rivers and swamps.

"There was no food, no water. If you wanted water (you) would force a fellow child to urinate so (you) could drink." The children were so thirsty they would threaten to kill their fellow captives if they could not urinate, she said.