By Mohamed T Massaquoi
Chairman of the Pujehun district council has told a security briefing of district stakeholders at the council hall that the area is the most affected in terms of sexual violations in the country.
Sadiq Silla said: ”Pujehun district is number one in the whole country that has so far recorded the highest number of sexual violation cases against women,” adding that nongovernmental organizations, operating in the areas of protecting women and children’s rights in Pujehun, would now secure more support to scale up their activities.
“It is, however, a very big shame on the part of those of us in governance positions,” he lamented.
He added that: “the prevalence of sexual violations in the district, if not immediately addressed by community authorities, will contribute to undermining development in our area.”
Silla therefore called on head of division of the Sierra Leone Police in the district to establish chiefdom police posts, with special emphasis on the riverine communities.
The district council chairman also claimed that most of such cases were being compromised at community levels, noting that the establishment of police posts would help bring perpetrators to book and serve as a remedy to occurrences of sexual violations.
He assured and promised that they were not going to compromise on anybody caught and proven to have sexually violated children and women in the district.
Police Local Unit Commander, Chief Superintendent Nathaniel Brewah, told the meeting that the district officer, the office of national security, other government officials and the chiefdom authorities had already approved of his decision to immediately deploy his men to those police posts.
Deployment started on Monday 17 August, 2015 in the Galliness Perri, Kpaka, Pejeh, Mano Sakrim, YKK and Panga Krim chiefdoms.
Brewah disclosed that: “on several occasions local authorities have been sitting on cases that have to do with the police at local level. This can be very frustrating to our efforts.”
Meanwhile, according to a report presented at the briefing by the Pujehun Magistrates Court six accused had been committed to the High Court on 1 August 2015, most of them offences of sexual penetration.
The police family support unit also made submission, largely involving sexual violations.
They said that on 27 July this year a primary school pupil, aged 10, was alleged to have been sexually penetrated by a 21-year-old man. The following day there was another case of a 4-year-old child, who was accompanied to the FSU after she was allegedly sexual violated by an adult of the same address and that investigations were being carried out into both claims.
The FSU line manager, Sergeant Lahai Koroma, told Politico that the suspect in the case of the 4-year-old was on the run, adding that, “this is as a result of the fact that we are constrained in the area of fuel for immediate response. The fuel support being given by the government is not enough.”
Koroma said the case involving the 21-year-old man for sexually penetrating the 10-year-old girl was already before the Pujehun Magistrates Court.
He also confirmed claims that cases of sexual violations against women and children were being reported to his office almost every day.
He pleaded to authorities in the district that they should not only take radio as the only tool to address the situation, but must also give fuel support to the police to help pursue perpetrators.
“Local authorities are the major contributing factors to the prevalence of sexual violations instances because they compromise most of the cases.”
(C) Politico 19/08/15
