IRC's Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC) Project is one attempt to tackle the problem of high sexual violence incidence and lack of services for survivors of sexual violence. Since its inception in September 2002, the project has established three sexual assault centres in Sierra Leone that enable survivors of sexual assault to access appropriate, quality services and care following an incident of rape or other form of sexual assault. The project is implemented in partnership with various Government and non-government agencies.

Sierra Leone is taking tentative steps to move from a conflict-dominated agenda to a development-orientated one. But donors are not providing the funding, says a Eurodad paper. Sierra Leone has produced its first full PRSP for the period 2005 – 2007. It signals an important move from a conflict-dominated agenda towards a much-needed development-orientated one and should be welcomed and supported by the international community. The problem is that funding for the PRSP is failing to materialise. Despite the PRSP having been produced in a relatively participative manner and being viewed by the international financial institutions (IFIs) and civil society as providing adequate policy solutions, funding both in the short-term and long- term appears limited.  

"We are writing on behalf of the International Press Institute (IPI) and the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), to call for the repeal of Sierra Leone's seditious libel law under which Paul Kamara, editor of For Di People, is currently imprisoned. In October 2004, Mr Kamara, editor and publisher of the independent daily For Di People, was convicted on two counts of seditious libel for articles that appeared in his newspaper focusing on a 1967 Commission of Inquiry, which reportedly implicated you in the embezzlement of public funds."

The Global Call to Action Against Poverty was officially launched at the Miatta Conference Hall Youyi Building in Freetown, Sierra Leone on the 25th May 2005. Participants came from platform memebrs and from other Civil Society Organisation (National and International), School children, the Media, Government officials, the Private Sector and the general public.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has condemned the criminal charges brought against two journalists from the private weekly newspaper Trumpet. Managing editor Sydney Pratt and reporter Dennis Jones were arrested and were being held at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in the capital, Freetown, where the paper is based. Both have been charged with "seditious libel" under Sierra Leone's draconian 1965 Public Order Act, which local journalists have long struggled to have removed from the books.

"We are writing on behalf of the World Association of Newspapers and the World Editors Forum, which represent 18,000 publications in 100 countries, to express our serious concern at an attack on editor Harry Yansaneh and the temporary closure of six independent newspapers. According to reports, on 10 May family members of the parliamentary representative for the Tonkolili Central Constituency, Fatamata Hassan Komeh, were involved in an incident in which Mr Yansaneh, acting editor of the daily For Di People, was assaulted, allegedly for writing negative comments about the government. Two of Mrs Komeh's sons and three others reportedly entered the newspaper's offices and Mr Yansaneh was assaulted. They also chased other staff members out of the offices and damaged computers and other equipment."

International Medical Corps (IMC) is a global humanitarian nonprofit organization dedicated to saving lives and relieving suffering through health care training and relief and development programs. IMC serves refugees and internally displaced populations (IDPs) and other vulnerable populations in need in over 20 countries in Europe, Africa, Middle East, and Asia. Programs include activity for Primary Health Care (PHC), Reproductive Health, Community-Based Services, Water and Sanitation, HIV/AIDS, Gender and Sexual Based Violence and Nutrition.

‘'It is not an easy job. Sometimes I get booed and taunted. At crucial moments I get chased out of places where the practice is much more prevalent,'' complains 34-year-old Ann Marie Caulker, who is championing the campaign to end the age-old tradition of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Caulker's strategy is simple. Through her Katanya Women's Development Association (KADWA), she has recruited hundreds of young girls, aged between 12 and 18, the prime target for FGM, and placed them in skills training centres. The girls learn tailoring, dyeing, weaving, soap making and embroidery.

The United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone may be preparing for the final pullout of its peacekeeping force by the end of the year, but it seems, the mission wants to leave behind a clean record, in so far as sexual exploitation and abuse is concerned. "The mission has embarked on massive sensitisation of the peacekeepers in the area of sexual abuse," says Ansumana Konneh, an official of the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone's (UNAMSIL's) civil affairs department.

A senior Conservative Party MP in the United Kingdom who heads a Commons committee to alleviate poverty in the Third World has been accused of attempting to use his position to make up to £1.5m for his own company, according to the Sunday Times newspaper. Tony Baldry, a former foreign minister, has been paid by a diamond firm to lobby the government of a west African country to secure valuable diamond concessions, says the newspaper. Baldry, chairman of the Commons international development committee, has close links with Sierra Leone, a war-ravaged country heavily dependent on British aid.

The European Union and its member states should press for Nigeria to hand over former Liberian president Charles Taylor to the U.N.-backed court for war crimes in Sierra Leone, Human Rights Watch said. The European Parliament has passed a resolution calling on the European Union and its member states to take immediate action to bring about Taylor's appearance before the Special Court for Sierra Leone. The Special Court indicted Charles Taylor on 17 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in contributing to the death, rape, abduction, and mutilation of thousands of civilians during Sierra Leone's civil war from 1991 to 2002. Forced from power in August 2003, the former Liberian president is currently in exile in Nigeria.

Allegations of misappropriation in high places have been a constant theme of Sierra Leone's troubled political history. While the government puts the main blame for the country's long civil conflict on greed for diamonds and foreign interference, its Anti-Corruption Commission points to other causes within Sierra Leonean society. As Sierra Leone puts the conflict behind it, the issue of corruption continues to rankle.

A pregnant woman is more likely to die giving birth in Sierra Leone than in any other country in the world. Health experts blame a shortage of medical staff equipped to deal with complications that can occur during labour, as well as the financial and logistical impracticalities of getting from home to a hospital. In this West African country struggling to emerge from a decade-long civil war, mothers die in 1,800 of every 100,000 live births, according to the 2005 global report from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

The youthful interim leader of the former Rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) movement, the self-styled General Issa Sesay, has ordered his former battle group commander Morris Kallon to join him and all the other defendants in the ongoing war crimes trials in Sierra Leone to boycott court hearings, according to the International Justice Tribune.

Trade Unions have suspended the first general strike in Sierra Leone to be held since the civil war ended three years ago. On Tuesday the country was brought to a standstill, but shops and offices have begun reopening says the BBC's Lansana Fofana from the capital, Freetown.

The Center for Victims of Torture is seeking a Field Coordinator to coordinate logistics operations of a psycho-social mental health project in Sierra Leone for refugees and internally displaced persons who have suffered torture and war trauma. The position has a one-year, renewable agreement.

I recently returned from a journey to Sierra Leone where I met with NGOs and CBOs in the country dealing specifically with women and children's issues. I have a lot of information on the organizations. However, I do not have a lot of statistics on the plight of women and children to help "paint a picture of the situation."

I have just started ‘A Brighter Tomorrow for Africa’ - a charitable organization to raise awareness of and resources for the CBOs and NGOs with which I visited. I am a subscriber and have seen stories on Sierra Leone. I have not, however seen specific statistics relating to the plight of women and children in Sierra Leone? Do you have any or can you point me to an organization that might? I am looking for the following information:

- Education? The level for women and for children?
- Sexual Abuse Cases?
- Ex Combatants?
- Number of street children?
- Number of orphans?
- The health of women and children in Sierra Leone?

Any and all help would be GREATLY appreciated. ([email protected])

A fresh strategy towards peacekeeping is needed in Liberia and Sierra Leone if both are not to remain shadow states, vulnerable to new fighting and state failure, argues the International Crisis Group (ICG) in a new report. "The international community needs to make genuinely long-term commitments - not two to five years, as at present, but on the order of fifteen to 25 years - to enable new political forces to develop," said the report.

The women of Kawula village say they have traded in blisters for beauty and regained freshness where they were once out of breath, all thanks to machines provided by the UN refugee agency. The machines in question are not cosmetic or sport gadgets. Instead, they are rice mills donated by UNHCR as part of community empowerment projects in north-western Sierra Leone's Kambia district, one of the major areas of return for Sierra Leonean refugees who fled the country during the decade-long civil war that ended in 2002.

Search for Common Ground (SFCG) has just made available three of its widely popular radio programs via the World Wide Web. Search for Common Ground-Sierra Leone’s Talking Drum Studio programs Atunda Ayenda, Common Ground News Feature, and Paliment Bol At can now be heard in Krio at www.talkingdrumstudio.org . The new site was created in an effort to reach the Sierra Leonean Diaspora and others with an interest in Sierra Leone.