The Silent Crisis of Gulu: A city that survived war now risks losing its girls

By Amiri Wabusimba

For years, the name Gulu was synonymous with war. It was the city at the center of northern Uganda’s brutal insurgency, where the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) abducted children, mutilated civilians, and committed crimes against humanity that shocked the world. Thousands were displaced, families were torn apart, and Gulu became shorthand for suffering.

Two decades later, the picture looks very different. The city has paved roads, bustling markets, new schools, hotels, and improved infrastructure. Visitors are welcomed by the elephant statue at its center, a symbol of resilience and the promise of tourism. English is widely spoken, signalling progress in education and integration into Uganda’s national development agenda. Gulu is being hailed as the north’s emerging urban hub.

But beneath this story of recovery lies a troubling truth: Gulu is losing its girls. A growing number of adolescent girls, some as young as fifteen, are visible on the city’s streets, drawn into transactional sex as a means of survival. Unlike Kampala, where poverty pushes children into begging, Gulu’s hidden crisis has taken a different form. Here, survival is being traded for dignity, and the silence surrounding it is deafening.

Health workers in the region warn of a surge in HIV infections directly linked to this underground trade. Beyond the health risks, the toll on mental well-being is staggering. Many of these girls carry unresolved trauma, a legacy of Gulu’s violent past. Their struggles are compounded by untreated mental illness and substance abuse, often concealed in bottles of locally brewed drinks marketed as harmless kombucha.

The evidence is not hard to find on one of Gulu’s main streets, where buses pull in and out, dusk marks the beginning of a grim ritual. Girls gather by shopfronts, some clutching bottles to stave off the night’s chill, waiting for men who will determine whether they can eat that night. For locals, this scene has become ordinary, a dangerous normalization of exploitation in a city once celebrated for its resilience.

This is not just Gulu’s crisis; it is a global one. Across post-conflict towns in Africa, Asia’s marginalized neighbourhoods, and Latin America’s urban slums, the pattern repeats itself. When opportunity dries up, when trauma is ignored, and when leadership is absent, adolescent girls pay the heaviest price.

The situation has been worsened by the suspension of critical health programs once supported by USAID and other partners. The loss of such interventions has left vulnerable girls without essential safety nets. International agencies like UNAIDS, WHO, and UNICEF have long warned about this cycle, yet in Gulu, action lags far behind the rhetoric.

What makes Gulu’s case urgent is its stark contrast. On one side, gleaming infrastructure and rising investment showcase the fruits of peace. On the other hand, a generation of girls is being eroded by poverty, neglect, and exploitation. Unless addressed, this silent crisis threatens to undo the very progress the city now symbolizes.

The response required is not sympathy but deliberate, sustained action. Community-led initiatives must restore dignity and opportunity for young people. Youth-focused sexual and reproductive health services need urgent expansion, along with scaled-up mental health support. Child protection laws must be enforced uncompromisingly. And most importantly, leadership, local, national, and international, must resist normalizing exploitation as an inevitable byproduct of poverty.

Gulu was once a beacon of resilience after war. Its people endured the unimaginable and rebuilt with determination. But the measure of recovery cannot be judged by paved roads or streetlights alone. True progress must be seen in the futures preserved, in whether the most vulnerable, especially adolescent girls, are protected, empowered, and allowed to dream of something more than survival. The world once looked to Gulu as the epicentre of northern Uganda’s suffering. It must look again, not to congratulate its visible transformation, but to confront the hidden crisis threatening to rob its girls of tomorrow.

The writer is a communication specialist, diplomatic scholar, journalist, political analyst, and human rights activist.