By Mohamed T Massaquoi
Women in Pujehun District have expressed anger at the Resident Minister of the Southern Region, Muctaru Conteh, over his alleged neglect of issues challenging them.
One of the major challenges to womanhood in Pujehun has been sexual assault. Sexual violence against women and girls in the district has grown almost by the day and it appears authorities can not contain it.
In February, the Family Support Unit (FSU) at the Sierra Leone Police in Pujehun Town reported that abuses against women and girls had increased considerably. The District Headquarter Division Detective Sergeant Lahai Koroma said at the time that they were investigating a “report of a sexual abuse against a seven-year-old girl involving a thirty-year-old man.”
Sergeant Koroma added that they recorded cases of sexual abuse every week.
The women say a major cause of the problem is lack of a resident magistrate at the Pujehun court. They say the magistrate for the court is resident in the southern capital city of Bo. The Court Registrar, Joshua Fayia, had said in February that the court had only two sittings in a month. And residents say that has caused delays in cases, of which most have turned out to be related to sexual violence.
The women have blamed the phenomenon on lack of political will to address it. The district coordinator of the 50/50 Women group, Catrine Bureh, told Politico that “the role for which the Resident Minister should serve in the governance system has not created any positive impact in our district, especially we the women. And in fact he is the major contributing factor for the general lack of resident magistrate in Pujehun.’’
Bureh said the Resident Minister should have been adding pressure on the central government for the provision of a resident magistrate.
She disclosed she had never set eyes on the Resident Minister.
Also, the Gender Desk Officer at the Pujehun District council, Hawa Massaquoi, reported she had never met with the Minister.
“I have never set eyes on the Resident Minister even in all of the coordination meetings that I have been fortunate to attend. And other government parastatals have been really coming to attend these meetings,’’ she explained.
Massaquoi complained that they had no direct link with any senior government official to tender their concerns to and securing justice was difficult for them. “It takes a very long time for the magistrate to preside over cases that have to do with sexual abuse and violence against us. This would have been some of the intervention [areas] of the minister.’’
Early last year, the Pujehun Magistrate court committed to High Court in Bo a case of an alleged ganged rape between four men and a young woman who reportedly died after the incident. But the commission came only about 15 months after prosecution and it followed a huge public outcry.
Martha Conteh, the district coordinator of the civil society group Open Government Initiative, said “the high level of political problems in the district that are affecting the development is as a result of the dormant role played by the minister.’’
She added that the minister had never paid official visit to the people of Pujehun.
In a telephone interview with Politico, Muctaru Conteh, the resident minister responded: “Those people who are raising those concerns might even be enemies to me and I am not going to comment more than what I have said. If they are not satisfied, let them write to the President [Koroma] and copy whosoever might be concerned. We as the ruling party [APC] have hierarchy and procedure to deal with.’’
Josephine Sowa is deputy chairlady of Women of Wanjama, the group championing the interest of all women in the district. She told Politico that the issue of violations against women in the district was still far from over, as a result of the complete lack of a resident magistrate.
Sowa said that it had been agreed in a meeting earlier with President Ernest Bai Koroma that a resident magistrate would be made available in the district in other to protect women from sexual violence of any nature.
She expressed frustration over the delay, noting that the government was not treating the issue of women with seriousness.
In 1014, Pujehun hosted the country’s International Women’s Day celebration in which President Koroma expressed readiness to tackle violence against women.
“In my leadership as the president of the Republic of Sierra Leone I am going to stand strongly together with my government officials to see that the issue of women, especially violations against them, is properly addressed because Sierra Leone will never develop if women do not play critical roles in the development process,” he said.
© Politico 16/04/15
