2022 Women Building Peace Award Finalist Eunice Otuko Apio (Uganda)
Channel: United States Institute of Peace
Date: 30/05/2023

Eunice Otuko Apio is the founder of Facilitation for Peace and Development (FAPAD), a grassroots peacebuilding NGO founded in 2004 in northern Uganda, where the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) launched its 35-year legacy of brutal terrorist attacks. Apio began her peacebuilding work during the peak of the LRA war in 2001, regularly travelling across a region riddled with land mines and LRA ambushes. Her initial efforts focused on mobilizing parents whose children had been abducted by the LRA, coordinating efforts to advocate for an end to the conflict, prevent abduction and the use of child soldiers, and secure the unconditional release of all children abducted by the LRA. As a schoolgirl, Apio had narrowly escaped LRA abduction.

Apio’s advocacy on behalf of children born of war and their mothers in Uganda and elsewhere has inspired international and national action. Her testimony to the U.N. Security Council in 2015 on the plight of children born to young girls raped and forced into “marriage” with LRA soldiers paved the way for inclusion of the Children Born Of War (CBOW) research consortium in two Women, Peace and Security resolutions. Since then, Apio has found new ways to advocate for CBOW in other conflicts, including meeting with the Pope in Rome.

Learn more about Apio’s peacebuilding work here: https://www.usip.org/2022-women-building-peace-award-finalists

The Women Building Peace Award is given each year to a woman peacebuilder who has made a major contribution to preventing conflict, combatting violence and building peace. Learn more about the award: https://www.usip.org/women-building-peace
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The United States Institute of Peace is a national, nonpartisan, independent institute, founded by Congress and dedicated to the proposition that a world without violent conflict is possible, practical and essential for U.S. and global security. In conflict zones abroad, the Institute works with local partners to prevent, mitigate, and resolve violent conflict. To reduce future crises and the need for costly interventions, USIP works with governments and civil societies to build local capacities to manage conflict peacefully. The Institute pursues its mission by linking research, policy, training, analysis and direct action to support those who are working to build a more peaceful, inclusive world. Learn more about USIP: https://www.usip.org/about