This paper examines the disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration (DDR) programme that took place when conflict ceased in Sierra Leone. While these programmes effectively reached out to male combatants, they largely ignored women's roles and experiences of conflict. This paper explores women and girls' unique experiences of conflict, and assesses how a gender perspective can improve formal disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration (DDR) programmes.

On 13 November 2004, Mohamed Amara Josiah, a correspondent for "Standard Times" newspaper in Kenema, eastern Sierra Leone, was assaulted by a group of men until he fell into a coma. Amara is currently responding to treatment at a local hospital in the region. According to MFWA sources in Sierra Leone, the attack on Amara followed an article published in the paper, entitled, "Tribalism and Nepotism Rocks Kenema Government Hospital". The article was said to have contained disparaging statements about Samuel Stevens, who heads the government hospital.

“They grew up hearing the sound of weapons, bombs and strong explosions; they took part in some of the cruellest battles ever seen anywhere: for this reason, I wonder if these children will ever manage to overcome the trauma of war,” the President of Sierra Leone, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, said at the opening of the conference dedicated to children in West Africa organised by the Italian department for international development.

Paul Kamara, the jailed editor of the independent newspaper "For Di People", has appealed the two-year prison sentence imposed on him by the High Court. In a 12-point statement filed with the Appeal Court in the capital, Freetown, on 22 October 2004, Kamara stated that the "judgement is against the weight of evidence" brought against him, and that the trial was handled by a judge sitting alone instead of a jury.

"We are the children of Sierra Leone. The war was targeted against us, our families and our communities. It was a brutal conflict, which we did nothing to cause, but we suffered terribly because of it. Every child in this country has a story to tell – a heartbreaking one.

Unfortunately only a handful of these stories have been told and made known to the world. The memories continue to weigh on our minds and hearts. We, the children of Sierra Leone, witnessed the worst possible human ruthlessness and terror. Children of this country were forced to fight for a cause we could not understand. We were drugged and made to kill and destroy our brothers and sisters and our mothers and fathers.

We were beaten, amputated and used as sex slaves. This was a wretched display of inhuman and immoral actions by those who were supposed to be protecting us. Our hands, which were meant to be used freely for play and schoolwork, were used instead, by force, to burn, kill and destroy.

We do not believe this is the end of our story. Rather, it is the beginning. We, who survived the war, are determined to go forward. We will look to a new future and we ourselves will help build the road to peace."

This is an extract from the first-ever version of a ‘Truth and Reconciliation Commission’ report intended specifically to be accessible by children. The report details the violations which occurred during the ten-year civil war in Sierra Leone, in which children were deliberately and systematically targeted. When the violence ended and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established, the children of Sierra Leone were asked to participate. With UNICEF’s help a version of the Commission’s findings which children could understand has been produced. Children were involved in all stages of the inquiry – from creating some of the drawings in the report to framing its recommendations for peace-building. Special care was taken to protect them, as victims and as witnesses.

The World Movement for Democracy is gravely concerned wioth the conviction of World Movement for Democracy participant Paul Kamara, editor of the Sierra Leone paper For Di People. On October 5th, Mr. Kamara received a four years prison sentence for criminally libeling Sierra Leone President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. Paul Kamara was also convicted of criminal libel and served a six month prison for defaming a judge in 2002. Both sentences have received strong criticism from international and local media groups such as the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders and the Sierra Leone Associations of Journalists.

The Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission has just published its report. The report concludes that "it was years of bad governance, endemic corruption and the denial of basic human rights that created the deplorable conditions that made conflict inevitable." Sierra Leone saw some of the most horrific and cruel atrocities committed by people against each other. "The overwhelming majority of atrocities were committed by Sierra Leoneans against Sierra Leoneans. All the fighting factions targeted civilians. Women and girls became targets for abuse in the brutal conflict in Sierra Leone. They suffered abductions and exploitation at the hands of their abductions. Their ulnerability was exploited in order to dehumanize them. Women and girls were raped, forced into sexual slavery and endured acts of sexual violence. Many suffered mutilations, torture and a host of other cruel and inhumane acts. The Commission found the leadership of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), the Sierra Leone Army (SLA) and the Civil Defense Forces (CDF) to be responsible for either authorising or instigating human rights violations against civilians; alternatively for failing to stop such practices or to speak out against them. Sierra Leone was systematically plundered and looted by all factions in the conflict. The Commission found the RUF to have been responsible for the largest number of human rights violations in the conflict." The report claims that the war was only partly to do with diamonds, which fuelled rather than caused the crisis. The report highlights the role of external parties in intensifying the conflict and "laments the fact that the international community, apart from the ECOWAS states, declined to intervene in the unfolding human catastrophe in Sierra Leone until at a very late stage." It recommendations include calling upon leaders to to respect human rights, the abolition of the death penalty, upholding freedom of expression, etc. On reparations, the commission proposes "a programme to address and respond to the specific needs of victims, rather than recommending cash handouts." The overview of the Commission's report can be found at the link below. The full report is due to be made available, we understand at http://www.ictj.org/

Fanny Ann was an activist in the real sense of the word. She dedicated herself to the cause of normalizing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in society through direct action and she was an example to those of us who play the victim and claim that nothing is possible in the hostile climates in which we exist. The early death of anyone is tragic; when that someone is gruesomely murdered for seemingly no other reason than that she stood up for the rights and fought for the dignity of those who are marginalized and persecuted in Africa, it leaves us all with deep feelings of confusion and despair.

The government of Sierra Leone should bring to justice those responsible for the brutal murder of FannyAnn Eddy, founder of the Sierra Leone Lesbian and Gay Association and a lesbian rights activist known across Africa, Human Rights Watch said October 4th. Eddy, 30, was found dead on the morning of September 29 after being raped repeatedly, stabbed and had her neck broken. FannyAnn Eddy's statement to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights on April 18, 2004 is available at: http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/10/04/sierra9439.htm.

It’s another case of natural resources proving to be a mixed blessing. While Sierra Leone’s government gratefully accepts revenues generated by the country’s fishing industry, illegal trawling by foreign vessels is providing cause for concern. "We’ve been able to generate close to four billion leones (about 1.6 million dollars) for this year alone compared to about two billion leones (just over 800,000 dollars) in 2002. This is remarkable, and would help shore up our ailing economy," says Okere Adams, minister for fisheries and marine resources. The profits stem partly from fishing licenses and royalties.

Guinea has agreed to hand back to Sierra Leone the disputed border village of Yenga. Guinea had occupied Yenga since 1998 in order to support the Sierra Leone government forces in their civil war against the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel movement and then remained there after the civil war ended in 2002. Despite previous border disputes between the two countries, they have now agreed that Yenga belongs to Sierra Leone.

The U.N.-backed court for war crimes in Sierra Leone needs funding to ensure justice for victims of atrocities committed during the country's 11-year civil war, Human Rights Watch said in a new report. The Special Court for Sierra Leone is resuming the trial of leaders of the government-backed Civil Defense Forces. The United Nations and its member states - particularly the United States and Britain - should fund the Special Court's budget so that it can complete its operations. They should also increase funding to several key areas of the court to ensure that it can deliver justice fairly and effectively.

The death toll from a cholera outbreak in Guinea and neighbouring Sierra Leone rose to 86 at the end of August, the Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies reported. The Geneva-based Federation said in a statement on Monday that 561 cholera cases and 55 deaths had been recorded in Sierra Leone up to 30 August, giving a death rate of nearly 10 percent.

A new push to reproductive health services planned at a London conference next week will have to work in Sierra Leone if anywhere. Sierra Leone, a small West African country on the Atlantic bordering Liberia and Guinea has the unhappy distinction of the highest maternal mortality rate in the world. ''That's about 2,100 per 100,000 births,'' Yvonne Harding who works with Marie Stopes International in the Sierra Leonean capital Freetown told IPS.

International Rescue Committee

You will be responsible for the supervision of all programs at the field site and for IRC Sierra Leone's compliance with USAID's grant regulations and conditions. The successful applicant will have three to five years experience working overseas in a humanitarian setting and experience with implementing USAID projects.

A cholera outbreak in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, has killed 40 people so far this month, a senior government health official told IRIN on Friday. He blamed overcrowded slums, torrential rains and infected traders arriving from neighbouring Guinea into Sierra Leone for the country's first cholera outbreak in five years.

Police in Sierra Leone have arrested the head of a local aid agency suspected of helping to smuggle 29 children out of the country for adoption in the United States, a senior police official said on Monday. Roland Kargbo, director of Help a Needy Child International (HANCI), was arrested with three co-workers following a report by Interpol into child trafficking to Western Europe and the United States, Inspector General Acha Kamara told reporters.

Say the word “mining” in the context of Sierra Leone, and thoughts instantly turn to the country's ruinous trade in conflict diamonds. However, the mining of another mineral - rutile - is also the source of some controversy in this West African state. Recently, the rutile sector received a boost when the European Union allocated almost 31 million dollars to fund the resumption of mining in southern Sierra Leone by the Sierra Rutile company. But, while the government is eager to have the rutile mines back in operation, certain environmental activists don't share its enthusiasm.

The United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) past Wednesday handed over security primacy for the Eastern Province to the Government of Sierra Leone at a colourful and emotional ceremony in the eastern provincial headquarters town of Kenema. It was the last of the country's three provinces to be handed back. The handover of security primacy by UNAMSIL will culminate in September when the Western Area, including the capital Freetown, is given back to the Government.

On 26 July 2004, Alex James, station manager of Citizen FM, a privately-owned community radio station located in the east of the capital, Freetown, was attacked by a group of armed youth in the community. James was returning home from work when he was attacked by the youth, who robbed him of his jewellery, cash and two mobile phones. Three days later, on the night of 29 July, the same armed youth group assaulted Alie Bai Kamara, a Citizen FM reporter, and left him in a coma. The youths left Kamara with lacerated lips, bruised arms and swollen eyes.