By Fatmata Tidankay Kamara (ATJLF/MRCG Fellow 2025)
The Sierra Leone civil war, which began in 1991 and ended in 2002, is estimated to have killed over 50,000 people and up to 70,000 casualties in total. Among these casualties were some of worst cases of human rights violations ever recorded in any conflict.
The post-war Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), in its report, recorded that women and children faced brutal violations of human rights. “While the majority of victims were adult males, perpetrators singled out women and children for some of the most brutal violations of human rights recorded in any conflict.” TRC Vol.2 Chap.2 Sec. 22, reads.
“They laid me naked after rapping me and inserted a stick in my womanhood in the presence of my husband and my 8 years old boy,” Suad Conteh (name change), a 45 years old woman recalled. Suad was a happily married woman who made a vow to live and love only one man; her husband, for the rest of her life. But this came to an end after the rebels attacked, raped, and inserted a stick in her womanhood in her husband’s presence.
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