By Mabinty M. Kamara
Defense for Children International in partnership with Equality Now have in a two-day training engaged young and senior lawyers on strategic impact litigation, public interest litigations under national, regional and international human rights mechanisms to strategic litigation of selected cases of sexual violence.
The training which took place on Thursday 18th February 2021 in Freetown according to the organizers was part of efforts to get young legal practitioners attracted to public interest litigations.
This according to the Executive Director of Defense for Children International, Abdul Manaff Kemokai is part of a project titled in local parlance “Leh we protect we gial pikin dem” or let us protect the girl-child, which is currently being rolled out in Bo and Kenema, that deals with providing legal assistance to victims of sexual violence, advocacy, monitoring legal proceedings and bringing together stakeholders like judges and magistrates.
Kemokai added that sexual offences are difficult to fight despite efforts by different activists including lawyers.
“We need more legal practitioners, we need more law students. So basically, we are having this training, to lure your interest but particularly to increase your knowledge in one particular aspect of legal work which is strategic litigation especially how we use regional and international mechanisms to hold government accountable and responsible for not adhering to some of the treaties it has acceded to, with regards the protection of children,” he said.
Speaking on behalf of Equality now, Jean Paul Murunga said their work is to support lawyers, activists and victims obtain justice in the event of sexual violations.
Some of the training sessions were virtual with facilitators outside Sierra Leone.
In her presentation, one of the facilitators Eleanor Thomson took the participants through the situational analysis of access to justice for sexual violence victims in Sierra Leone.
She noted recent figures released by the Rainbo Initiative which recorded 3,339 sexual offence cases for the year 2020 showed a good number of them were perpetrated against minors.
She explained the major reviews made on the 2012 sexual offences act which imposed stiffer punishment on offenders. However, she said compromise still remains a challenge in the fight against sexual offences.
Madam Thompson also noted the prevalence of child- marriage remains a challenge in Sierra Leone as well.
The punishment clause in the reviewed 2019 sexual offenses Act states a minimum of 5 years and maximum of 15 years imprisonment for perpetrators below the age of 18, minimum of 10 years and a maximum of life time and a minimum of 15 years and life imprisonment for perpetrators aged 25 and above. But it did not make provision for sexual offences committed by a child on another child since they are both children. She was concerned about a situation where both the perpetrators are minors.
“Let’s say we have a 17 year-old and another 17 year- old engaging in sexual activity. What do we do? They are both children. How do we navigate treating them both as children and also the other as a perpetrator? This is why we have difference in category of the charges,” she said
She added “but practitioners need to tell us whether there is need for additional amendment, whether the reality of our society, our culture requires people to think that a 17 year -old and another 17 year- old engaging in sexual activities constitutes a criminal Act. So how does the law reflect or not reflect what is happening in the society. Those are areas for testing what we currently have.”
She added that victims, family relatives, social workers and other authorities can report sexual offences.
The training ends today, 19th February 2021.
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