Catalyst for Peace (formerly Catalyst Peacebuilding)

We have been fortunate: we have not witnessed the amputations, the rape, or the burning and looting of villages. We have not witnessed the game some rebels played — betting over cigarettes on the sex of an expecting mother’s baby, concluded by the slitting of the woman’s womb to determine the winners.

But the violence continues, even after the Lome Peace Agreement in 1999 and the democratic election of President Kabbah in 2002. Sierra Leone’s social fabric depends almost entirely on the family and community structure. Family does not only include the mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle… it includes the greater community. What happens when a war, abundant with heinous acts and rampant killing over an 11-year period, cuts to the heart of the organic support system that every Sierra Leonean had learned to depend on?

Las week in Makeni we worked with Reverend Moses Kanu, a gentle and insightful man who has devoted much time to the plight of the “girl-mothers” of his town and surrounding villages. This is just one of the many examples that illustrate the violence that continues to take place throughout the country. Moses conducted a recent survey that found 40% of the girls in secondary school were also mothers. Although their own family members would help to take care of their children so that they could continue school, the rest of the responsibilities of raising a child were left to them. And these girls are fortunate enough to have mothers or other family members that were alive and willing to continue to accept their pregnant daughters into their lives. Many are not so fortunate. Moses explained that this problem has increased tremendously since the end of the war; thousands of girls were taken by the rebels and turned into mothers before the end of the war and so many others were left parent-less by the war – so they turned to the streets as the only means to get money and food.

I have heard many aid workers pinpoint women’s education as being the single most important factor in fostering development and progress in a country. At a time when there are countless indigenous and international organizations and community groups pushing for girls’ education, this consequence of the war only hinders their work and the future of Sierra Leone. The adolescents have become parents of the next generation, born to absent fathers who were rebels or young men from the streets. What will become of this next generation?

Although the war has ended, the violence continues in so many other ways. Sierra Leone is full of people who want and yearn for peace, but the country is not at peace. Amputees and war victims are tortured by the promise of reparations to help them feed their families. Families have been torn apart by murder and by the abduction of their children; some adults that were taken as children by rebels during the war may still have living family members to go home to, but will not be reunited either for fear of rejection or because they have already been rejected due to their participation in the war. It is important to note that there has been successful reintegration throughout the country. However, five years later, the war is still very present in every day life and struggle, and will continue to be.