Torture in [Sierra Leone] [other countries]Human Trafficking in [Sierra Leone Street Children in [Sierra Leone] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Sierra Leone] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery In the early years of the 21st Century gvnet.com/humantrafficking/SierraLeone.htm
Sierra Leone is a source, transit, and
destination country for children and women trafficked for the purposes of
forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. The majority of victims are
children trafficked internally within the country, largely from rural
provinces, and sometimes from refugee communities, to urban and mining
centers. Within the country, women and children are trafficked for: domestic
servitude; commercial sexual exploitation; forced labor in agriculture,
diamond mining, and the fishing industry; forced petty trading; forced street
crime; and forced begging. - U.S.
State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2009 [full country
report] |
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CAUTION: The following
links have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLES *** Children working in Lansana Fofana, BBC News, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3189299.stm [accessed 22 December 2010] BLESSINGS - Undoubtedly, the
children number several thousands, and many of them get the blessing of their
parents, who have come to see them as breadwinners of the impoverished
families. Over the past few days, I
have been visiting the mine sites here and what I see is incredible. The children aged between seven and 16 go
to the mines as early as 0800 and work through to 1800. They do hard labour, like digging in soil
and gravel, before sifting with a pan for gemstones and shifting heavy mud
believed to contain diamonds. Boy soldier 'recruited' at the age of 6 The Times, March 30, 2004 www.essex.ac.uk/armedcon/story_id/000179.html [accessed 25 April 2012] Kabba
Williams is thought to have been One day in
particular is etched on his memory. At the age of 12 he was given a group of
captives to kill. “I had the nickname ‘Hungry Lion’. I was given a bayonet.
They were tied up, six of them. I stabbed them repeatedly with the knife.” ***
ARCHIVES *** The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/sierra-leone.htm [accessed 22 December 2010] INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Trafficking in persons declined with the
demobilization of child soldiers following the end of the civil
conflict. Children have been
trafficked to Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61591.htm [accessed 22 December 2010] TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS
– The country continued to be a source, transit point, and destination for
internationally trafficked persons. The majority of victims were women and
the majority of traffickers were thought to be family members or friends who
lured victims from their home villages with promises of education,
caretaking, or employment. There were no
specific figures on the number of persons trafficked. However, anecdotal
reports indicated the following: children were trafficked from the provinces to
work in the capital as laborers and commercial sex workers and to diamond
areas for labor and sex work; persons were trafficked from neighboring
countries for domestic and street labor and for commercial sex work; persons
were trafficked out of the country to destinations in west Africa, including
Nigeria, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, and Guinea-Bissau for labor and sex work;
persons were also trafficked to Lebanon, Europe, and North America; and the
country served as a transit point for persons trafficked from elsewhere in
west Africa and possibly the Middle East. Concluding Observations Of The Committee On
The Rights Of The Child (CRC) UN Convention on the Rights of the Child,
28 January 2000 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/sierraleone2000.html [accessed 22 December 2010] [52] The Committee
notes the introduction by the State party of the 1989 Adoption Act, but is
nevertheless concerned that child nationals of the State party may remain
vulnerable to problems of illegal adoption, including inter-country adoption. Trafficking of African women is
thriving Francois Tillinac, International Labour Organisation (ILO) News, May 10 2007 www.iol.co.za/news/africa/trafficking-of-african-women-is-thriving-1.352453 [accessed 14 November 2010] In January Italian
police smashed several human trafficking rings involving African and eastern
European females and netted some 800 suspects. Outside Freedom House Country Report - Political Rights: 3 Civil
Liberties: 3 Status: Partly Free 2009 Edition www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2009/sierra-leone [accessed 27 June 2012] Human Rights
Overview Human Rights Watch www.hrw.org/africa/sierra-leone [accessed 22 December 2010] Four Nations Move Against Trafficking in
Response to Bureau of International Information
Programs, www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2004/September/20040910174056cmretrop0.6162226.html [accessed 22 December 2010] "These four
countries made notable progress in many key areas including prosecution of
trafficking related cases; creating police anti-trafficking units; increasing
efforts to identify and rescue trafficking victims; drafting new
anti-trafficking legislation and procedures; and conducting high-profile
public awareness campaigns," said spokesman Scott McClellan. "These
tremendous accomplishments will punish perpetrators and help innocent victims
of this heinous crime around the world." afrol News (African News Agency), June 3,
2004 [accessed 22 December 2010] The International law
history has been written in Children working in Lansana Fofana, BBC News, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3189299.stm [accessed 22 December 2010] BLESSINGS - Undoubtedly, the
children number several thousands, and many of them get the blessing of their
parents, who have come to see them as breadwinners of the impoverished
families. Over the past few days, I
have been visiting the mine sites here and what I see is incredible. The children aged between seven and 16 go
to the mines as early as 0800 and work through to 1800. They do hard labour, like digging in soil
and gravel, before sifting with a pan for gemstones and shifting heavy mud
believed to contain diamonds. Boy soldier 'recruited' at the age of 6 The Times, March 30, 2004 www.essex.ac.uk/armedcon/story_id/000179.html [accessed 25 April 2012] Kabba
Williams is thought to have been One day in
particular is etched on his memory. At the age of 12 he was given a group of
captives to kill. “I had the nickname ‘Hungry Lion’. I was given a bayonet.
They were tied up, six of them. I stabbed them repeatedly with the knife. Aisling www.bellaonline.com/articles/art24082.asp [accessed 22 December 2010] Sierra Leone is
probably is the poorest country of the world due to the ravaging civil war
and the terrorist activities of the Revolutionary United Front, or RUF. For
both men and women, living under these conditions is producing hundreds of
thousands refugees and internal displacement. Generally speaking, it is
difficult to differentiate between women's rights and human rights. Women and
children are known to be the principal war victims. women
and Children are often submitted to rape, sexual slavery, forced labour,
torture, mutilation and forced recrutiation by the
RUF. The RUF is notoriously known to use terror against the civil population,
especially Women and Children. Violations such as these are one of their
principal war tactics. The biggest UN peacekeeping force in history is
present, so now exists some hope of peace in the
country. USAID/Sierra Leone Transition Strategy
Phase 2 - Fy 2004 – Fy
2006 USAID At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 11 September 2011] BACKGROUND - The emergence of
the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), a loose grouping of former Sierra
Leonean soldiers and mercenaries backed by Liberian president, Charles
Taylor, in early 1991 led Open letter to Permanent Representatives at
the African Union (AU) regarding the case of Charles Taylor, former President
of Amnesty International, Index Number: IOR
63/007/2004, Date Published: 3 August 2004 www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/IOR63/007/2004/en [accessed 22 December 2010] This decision is a
betrayal of the tens of thousands of African victims of the worst possible
crimes imaginable committed during the conflict in 2004 UN Commission on the Status of Women.
Violence against Women: universal but not inevitable! Amnesty International, Index Number: IOR
41/004/2004, Date Published: 1 March 2004 www2.amnesty.se/svaw.nsf/0/924AB7A1E3C85228C1256E82002F3951?opendocument [accessed 22 December 2010] VIOLENCE IN
POST-CONFLICT SITUATIONS - Peace processes have routinely failed to include
women and to deal with gender issues, which can result in gender-based
persecution and violence being rendered invisible in peace agreements and not
taken into account in their interpretation and implementation. For example,
an AI delegation which visited UNICEF: War fuels Jonathan Fowler, Associated Press AP, www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-93762330.html [partially accessed 28 August 2011 - access
restricted] Some 80 percent of
African nations reported "internal trafficking," where individuals
do not cross borders but are shifted around the country to meet demand for
cheap household and farm labor and prostitution. Flawed or
nonexistent birth registration makes it easier for traffickers to move
youngsters between countries, because unregistered children never formally
acquire a nationality, said Rossi.
"It becomes impossible to prove whether a young girl working as a
housemaid in In sub-Saharan Victoria Brittain, The Guardian, 16 January
2003 www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/jan/16/sierraleone.westafrica [accessed 22 December 2010] Unknown numbers of
the thousands of women and girls abducted by the rebels still remain with
their "husbands" in conditions of sexual slavery, although the war
was declared over a year ago, HRW reports.
There has been no accountability for the thousands of crimes of sexual
violence, and a climate of impunity persists, the report says, allowing the
perpetrators of sexual violence (as well as other crimes) to escape
justice. Survivors of rape and other
sexual crimes - some boys as well as the thousands of women and girls - need
"drastically increased funding for trauma counselling, health, education
and skills training", according to HRW. Sierra rebels free child soldiers BBC News, 26 May 2001 news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1352801.stm [accessed 22 December 2010] Rebels in Children have
carried out some of the worst atrocities of the war, including hacking off
the limbs of enemies and civilians. Forced labour, human trafficking, slavery
haunt us still International Labour Organisation (ILO)
News, World Of Work, No. 39, June 2001 www2.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/inf/magazine/39/human.htm [accessed 22 December 2010] The report notes
that outright slavery, though increasingly rare in the modern world, is still
found in a handful of countries, and the wholesale abduction of individuals
and communities in such conflict-torn societies as Amnesty International www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AFR51/069/2000/en [accessed 3 September 2012] MAY 2000 - CHILDREN
AGAIN FORCED INTO CONFLICT - In his Fourth Report on UNAMSIL to the UN Security
Council on 19 May 2000, the UN Secretary-General cited preliminary reports
which suggested that child combatants were being used extensively as
hostilities resumed. UNAMSIL human rights officers who visited Masiaka on 15 May 2000 observed several child combatants,
mostly boys, with the CDF, the AFRC and former Sierra Leone Army and the
reconstituted Sierra Leone Army. Some 25 per cent of the combatants observed
were under 18 and some freely admitted that they were between 7 and 14.
Almost all of them were armed. All material
used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107 for
noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT
ARTICLES. Cite this webpage as: Patt,
Prof. Martin, "Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery – |
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Torture in [Sierra Leone] [other countries]Human Trafficking in [Sierra Leone Street Children in [Sierra Leone] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Sierra Leone] [other countries]