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Another child,4, raped in Sierra Leone as As Attorney General calls to harmonise to tackle the menace

  • Priscilla Schwartz, Sierra Leone's Justice Minister

By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay

Even with Sierra Leoneans still reeling from the rape and murder of five-year-old Kadija Saccoh, comes more grim news that a four-year-old girl was raped and is gravely ill in hospital. This, as Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Pricilla Schwartz says there is need for a more coordinated approach in getting justice for victims of rape and other sexual crimes in the country.

Margaret, the mother of the latest victim, told Politico that on Sunday she was bathing her daughter, who turns five in July, when she noticed something strange about her. “Heartbroken amid all the bad things happening to girls around, I asked her what had happened to her but she said ‘nothing’”, she said.

The distraught mother added: “I took her to the room and threatened to call the police for her if she did not say”. At that point, she went on, her daughter opened up saying she had been raped by a retired police officer who is married and lives in the neighbourhood with his family.

“Other people in the neighbourhood corroborated my daughter’s story saying they had noticed a strange closeness between my daughter and the man”, she said.

She later reported the matter at the police before visiting the RAINBO CENTRE which cares for victims of sexual assault. 

Margaret said her child received treatment from the centre who advised that she might need to take her daughter to see a specialist doctor. At the time of speaking to Politico, her daughter could no longer walk and the mother sounded hopeless.

However the Aberdeen Women’s Centre later picked her up with her daughter to the centre. But the mother later said that they were referred to the Emergency Hospital where blood donors stepped forward for a surgery scheduled for yesterday.

The Attorney General, who was speaking at a press conference at State House before news of the latest victim had come through, said protests and uncoordinated activism could not solve the problem. Schwartz said actions geared towards seeking justice for victims should be done within a certain coordinated framework.

“Somehow within the system, this spate of uncoordinated approach towards addressing criminal justice issues has been done out of the policy context in which we can form a cohesive, strategic policy around criminal justice,” the Attorney General said.

She said a task force had been set up with members drawn from her office, the judiciary, campaigners and the Police. She said this group would follow up their engagement with a workshop.

“We will follow this up with a workshop where we can actually come up with a strategy that will be a policy on criminal justice which will now look in to these issues and address them at the source and not just in a reactive…”

She went on: “We will look at them in a focused way and assess what institutions we will need in government to address which His Excellency and the Ministers are referring to. We must have institutions to nip these things in the board. Kids must have other people to talk to if they feel threatened. We must provide for them the support, and this support must all be coordinated, not just in a reactive force of the legal process that is taken to court.”

Reported cases of rape and other sexual assault cases have increased exponentially. The Rainbow Initiative which gives medical and psychosocial support to rape victims has announced this week that in the first five months of this year, they have recorded 1,272 cases of rape and other sexual and gender-based violence cases in their five centres across the country. 

Speaking at the same press conference as the Attorney General on Tuesday, President Julius Maada Bio expressed his shock and outrage at the menace especially the manner of Khadija’s death.

“The depravity of sexual violence is obscene, criminal and totally objectionable. As a government we stand with the survivors, victims and their loved ones. And my government will vigorously prosecute perpetrators and bring them to justice,” President Bio said.

His comment on the issue also came with a strong condemnation for parents who are not taking care of their children.

“Do I have to go in to every home and say take care of your child? Do I have to go in to every home and say if you see your child not behaving properly and you think she has been molested and tampered with, come to the police?” he asked rhetorically.

Copyright © Politico Online

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