China Keitetsi

China Keitetsi (born 1976) is a Ugandan activist campaigning against the use of child soldiers. The memoirs of Keitetsi, a former child soldier herself, have been translated into French, German, Japanese, Chinese, Danish, Italian, Spanish, Dutch and other languages.

Biography China Keitetsi was born in 1976 in the west of Uganda where she grew up in a rural area. Following her parents' separation, she ran away at age nine in 1984 along with her sister in an attempt to find their mother, but was unable to locate her. Amidst Uganda's civil war and with limited options, she was recruited into the rebel National Resistance Army, becoming a child soldier. In her speeches and books, Keitetsi explains how children were viewed as "perfect" soldiers due to their loyalty, speed in learning, and lack of questioning, and recounts the psychological trauma of replacing family with a gun—her only source of "protection"—along with the pressure to suppress emotions like grief or fear in order to survive.

Kampala fell on 26 January 1986, and Museveni was proclaimed as president, but Uganda remained haunted by civil war. During this period, China Keitetsi worked as a bodyguard for a high-ranking official before joining the Military Police. She spent ten years as a female child soldier in fear, humiliation, and sexual assault under the Ugandan National Resistance Army. She has become an international spokeswoman for the plight of child soldiers worldwide. China goes around Europe, the United States, Canada, and Japan, as well as to the UN, UNESCO, and the German Parliament giving lectures on the problems of children as soldiers. Many organizations, including UNICEF, Amnesty International, Terre des Hommes, Oxfam, the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, and IANSA, support China Keitetsi in her cause. China's book has been published in Denmark, The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Africa, England, France, Spain, the Czech Republic, Japan and China.

She recorded an intro to the song "Blood" of The Kelly Family (sung by Jimmy Kelly on the 2003 album Homerun).

Her books

Child Soldier: Fighting for my Life (German edition: Sie nahmen mir die Mutter und gaben mir ein Gewehr) published in 2002 Tears Between Heaven and Earth: My way back to life 2007