![[Back]](./images/back.gif)
| Title: | Sexual violence in Sierra Leone. |
| Subject(s): | |
| Source: | |
| Author(s): | |
| Abstract: | Focuses on sexual violence against women and girls during civil war in Sierra Leone. Effect of the July 1999 peace accord on sexual violence; How rape is committed by forces loyal to the government, including the Kamajors, a group which used to be committed to abstinence during warfare; Health consequences for sexual abuse victims; Lack of women's rights training; Call for an international tribunal. |
| AN: | 4015787 |
| ISSN: | 0099-5355 |
| Full Text Word Count: | 497 |
| Database: | Academic Search Premier |
Section: Health and Human Rights
(e-mail: bogertc@hrw.org)
9 years of civil war in Sierra Leone have unleashed widespread and systematic sexual violence against women and girls. This violence has included gang rape, sexual slavery, and assault. The rebel factions use sexual violence to terrorise the civilian population--to humiliate and punish them, and ultimately to control them. Sexual violence in this war is intended to break taboos and undermine cultural values. Human Rights Watch has documented cases of fathers being forced to watch the rape of their daughters, and middle-aged women being raped by boys as young as 11. Girls have been raped during sacred coming-of-age rituals.
In July, 1999, the Sierra Leonean government and rebels signed a peace accord giving amnesty to all sides in the war. Some forms of human-rights abuse dissipated after the accord--but sexual violence continued, unabated. Now, since the peace accord collapsed in May, 2000, there has been a substantial increase in women being raped by forces loyal to the Sierra Leonean government.
The largest faction among the government's Civil Defense Forces is the Kamajors, who believe that their potency as a warrior depends on sexual abstinence. But in recent years, the Kamajors have been moved away from their native areas in the south and east and given more responsibility for national security. Now separated from their traditional chiefs, they have let discipline flag, and grown more inclined to commit sexual violence.
The victims of sexual violence can suffer serious health consequences. We have documented two rape victims who suffered a prolapsed uterus, and several cases of serious injury in women who had objects inserted into their vaginas. The incidence of sexually transmitted diseases is very high among the victims of sexual violence, although the HIV/AIDS infection rate in this population is not known. Sierra Leone has no programmes available to test for the infection.
Sexual violence is among the most serious, and is possibly the most prevalent, human-rights abuse now underway in Sierra Leone. But surprisingly it is not a focus for the foreign authorities working in the country. The UN is currently providing some human-rights education to Sierra Leonean police units, and the British army is training 3000 members of the Sierra Leonean army on the laws of armed conflict and the protection of children, but no one offers any specific training to any military or police force in Sierra Leone on women's rights.
We have called for the establishment of an internationally supported tribunal to bring to justice the perpetrators of war crimes and other abuses in Sierra Leone. That tribunal has been slow in coming. But if and when the UN finally sets up such a court, rape, sexual slavery, and sexual mutilation must be judged as crimes against humanity and war crimes. They cannot be viewed as anything less.
~~~~~~~~
By Carroll Bogert and Corinne Dufka, Human Rights Watch, 350 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10118-3299, USA