In the middle of the night, Ida Aryamo hid in bushes outside the rebels’ camp, her 8-month-old baby clutched in her arms.

It started raining and then stopped and then started again.

After a long night, Ida and her son, Innocent, were rescued by a woman after they made it out to a nearby road. Ida had spent two years as a child soldier, the first cleaning and cooking, giving away all the best food to the commanders.

She and the other girl soldiers either went hungry or got a few scraps to eat. After about a year, the commander insisted Ida become his wife. He told her he was 25, but he looked much older.

"They beat me with the cane for having refused him as my husband,” said Ida, in a phone interview from a camp in Northern Uganda. “And when I was given to the commander, I was raped at 15 years old.

And from that time afterward, I was forced to love him, respect him as my own husband.” She also had his baby before her 16th birthday.

Now residing in a refugee camp, Ida has trouble finding work. She helps other former child soldiers and does some sewing, but is too poor to support her child. Trained as a tailor, she is too poor to purchase a sewing machine.

In the camp, she does some farming and teaches conflict resolution and peace education to other youth. She wonders if there are any programs in the United States to help her child. She would like to find assistance programs for herself, too, but her child is her first priority.

Copyright 2007 Y-Press