Mr. Speaker, recently I joined my Ottawa neighbours and thousands globally in the annual Gulu Walk.
For 40,000 children in northern Uganda, eight kilometres is the average distance between safety and horror. Every night, these children walk many kilometres seeking safety from abduction by the Lord's Resistance Army, the LRA. During the decades long war, the LRA has abducted more than 30,000 children using torture and terror to warp children into child soldiers and sex slaves.
The nightly commute and the return journey to school each morning is dangerous. Many are abducted, raped or murdered along the way. To ignore the plight of these children is reprehensible.
Canada can and must use its influence in the United Nations to call for both sides in the conflict to honour the peace process. The LRA must immediately release all child soldiers and captives and the global community, with Canada leading, must accept its responsibility and ameliorate the suffering of these children whose innocence has been stolen and whose lives have been shattered.