Ugandan nun teaches child moms how to love themselves, their babies

Published: 2007-12-21

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe said babies are "all over" her boarding school in northern Uganda. One hundred of them are watched at St. Monica's Tailoring School outside Gulu while their teen mothers -- many of whom were kidnapped as children and used as sex slaves by rebels -- go to school. The so-called "child mothers," who could not return to their former communities because of rejection, because they were orphaned or too embarrassed about what they were forced to do while kidnapped, are taught trades for income, human dignity and love, said Sister Rosemary, a member of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. "We teach them how to love" their babies, she told Catholic News Service in Washington Dec. 13. "These girls need love and care, and that goes right to their babies." For more than 20 years, rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army have been fighting government troops in northern Uganda. More than 200,000 people have been killed and more than 1.7 million people have been displaced, with many forced to live in makeshift camps.

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