Child Soldiers Global Report 2004 - Sierra Leone
| Publisher | Child Soldiers International |
| Publication Date | 2004 |
| Cite as | Child Soldiers International, Child Soldiers Global Report 2004 - Sierra Leone, 2004, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/4988062e28.html [accessed 1 November 2019] |
| Disclaimer | This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. |
Republic of Sierra Leone
Covers the period from April 2001 to March 2004.
Population: 4.8 million (2.4 million under 18)
Government armed forces: 13-14,000 (estimate)
Compulsory recruitment age: no conscription
Voluntary recruitment age: 17½ (younger with parental consent)
Voting age: 18
Optional Protocol: ratified 15 May 2002
Other treaties ratified (see glossary): CRC, GC AP I and II, ICC; ACRWC
There were no indications of under-18s in government armed forces. Some former child soldiers from armed political groups were actively involved in conflicts in Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire in 2002 and 2003. The ending of reintegration programs for former fighters, including nearly 7,000 former child soldiers, raised concerns of re-recruitment by armed groups across the region. The programs failed to address the needs of thousands of abducted girls and women. The Special Court for Sierra Leone indicted several former leaders of parties to the conflict and former Liberian President Charles Taylor for crimes against humanity, war crimes and other serious violations of international law, including the recruitment of child soldiers and sexual slavery.
Context
The armed conflict that had begun in 1991 was declared officially over in January 2002. The armed forces and the police – restructured, trained and equipped by the international community – gradually resumed responsibility for security and law enforcement in areas previously affected by conflict, supported by the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL).1 In March 2004 a proposal by the UN Secretary-General that UNAMSIL's mandate be extended to December 2005 on the grounds that the peace progress remained fragile, and that the government was not in a position to assume full responsibility for security, was accepted by the UN Security Council. The Secretary-General also noted that more needed to be done to consolidate government administration and control of diamond mining areas.2
In elections in May 2002, incumbent President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah was re-elected and his ruling party gained a large majority in parliament.
Members of the armed forces largely voted for Johnny Paul Koroma, former leader of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), which seized and held power from 1997 to 1998, but accepted the result. The armed political group, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), whose invasion of Sierra Leone from Liberia in 1991 had triggered the civil war and which had now transformed into a political party, received little electoral support.3
Some 250,000 Sierra Leonean refugees returned from Guinea, Liberia and other countries in the region as security was re-established in Sierra Leone or because of increased insecurity in their country of refuge. Over 80,000 other refugees were expected to return in 2004.4 Regional instability continued to cause population displacement. An unknown number of child soldiers from former armed political groups in Sierra Leone were recruited to fight in wars in Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire.5
Continuing armed conflict in Liberia in 2003 threatened to undermine the peace process in Sierra Leone as former Sierra Leonean combatants were re-recruited by Liberian government and opposition forces. Armed groups from Liberia attacked villages in Sierra Leone near the border.6 Following the departure of Liberian President Charles Taylor in August 2003, the threat receded.
Government
National recruitment legislation and practice
The Sierra Leone Forces Act of 1961 states that volunteers under "the apparent age of seventeen and a half years" may not be enlisted without the consent of parents or guardians.7 The government has made repeated commitments to raise the age of recruitment. Its declaration accompanying ratification of the Optional Protocol in May 2002 affirmed that there was no conscription and that the minimum age for voluntary recruitment into the armed forces was 18.8 However, no changes in legislation appeared to have been made. There were no reports of child soldiers in the new armed forces.
The 1991 constitution prohibits forced labour, as well as the holding of people in slavery or servitude (Article 19).
Although the pro-government Civil Defence Forces (CDF) participated in the disarmament process and despite a government commitment to disband the CDF by January 2003, their Kamajor (traditional hunters, in Mende language) component reportedly retained its command structure in some areas in December 2003.9 The Kamajors were believed to have access to arms despite the end of the disarmament process.10 During the conflict, they had recruited large numbers of children.
Former armed political groups
An unknown number of child soldiers from former armed political groups, the RUF and AFRC, were recruited to fight in wars in neighbouring Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire.
Special court for Sierra Leone
In November 2002 the Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, which was mandated to try those "bearing the greatest responsibility" for crimes against humanity, war crimes and other serious violations of international law, confirmed that children would not be indicted by the Special Court.11 The Statute of the Special Court specifically included as a serious violation of international humanitarian law "conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15". In March 2004 the Special Court ruled that the general amnesty granted under the 1999 Lomé peace agreement did not prevent international courts, including the Special Court, from prosecuting crimes against humanity and war crimes.12
By the end of March 2004, 11 people associated with the RUF, AFRC or CDF had been indicted on charges including murder, rape, enslavement, sexual slavery and other serious abuses. All were accused of recruiting children, including children under the age of 15, into armed forces to participate actively in hostilities. One of those indicted was Charles Taylor, former Liberian President, who was accused of "bearing the greatest responsibility for war crimes" and of supporting the RUF to destabilize Sierra Leone. Charles Taylor left for exile in Nigeria in August 2003 on the implicit understanding that he would neither be surrendered to the Special Court nor face prosecution in Nigeria. Human rights groups protested at this apparent immunity from prosecution.13
Other indictments, against former RUF leader Foday Sankoh, who died from natural causes in custody in July 2003, and former RUF commander Sam Bockarie, who was killed in Liberia in May 2003, were withdrawn in December 2003.
Truth and reconciliation commission
Between December 2002 and August 2003 the Truth and Reconciliation Commission held public hearings and collected approximately 8,000 statements from victims and perpetrators of human rights abuses, including child soldiers. Some former combatants were reluctant to testify for fear of retribution, exclusion from their communities or indictment by the Special Court.14 A survey by a Sierra Leone non-governmental organization (NGO) found that others welcomed the opportunity to testify before the Commission, including about the circumstances of their recruitment and the atrocities they had committed.15
Disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR)
The initial program of reintegration of former combatants was closed on 31 December 2003. UNAMSIL estimated that the majority of the 6,845 child combatants, including 529 girls, who had been demobilized by 2002 had been reunited with their families, and some 3,000 had been absorbed into a community education program run by UNICEF.16
The DDR program was criticized for failing to address the needs of thousands of abducted women and girls, and their children. The lack of clear policy and procedural guidelines resulted in responsibility falling between government institutions and implementing agencies. Little funding was allocated for their protection needs, and despite the sexual abuse most had suffered, only a few programs provided counselling, education or training.17 In some villages, returning child soldiers underwent traditional cleansing or religious rites. However, some communities insisted that former girl fighters undergo female genital mutilation as part of their reintegration.18
Some 1,000 women and girls who were not included in the DDR program were estimated to be living with former rebel combatants.19 Only about eight per cent of girls associated with rebel forces had come forward, according to humanitarian workers. UNICEF began a new program in May 2003 aimed at assisting these women and girls, by then often abandoned.20 Child Welfare Committees were trained in providing support for them and for child diamond miners, but were hampered by limited funding.21
Child demobilization programs did not include former fighters who, although recruited or abducted as children, after ten years of war were demobilized as adults, despite their unique needs and undoubted trauma as former child soldiers.22 At the beginning of the conflict, 70 per cent of fighters were under the age of 18, according to a survey by a Sierra Leone NGO.23
Arrangements were not agreed for the repatriation and reintegration of up to 500 former combatants in Côte d'Ivoire and up to 3,000 in Liberia. The government indicated that they were not entitled to special treatment as they had not returned for the DDR program, raising concerns that their return could lead to security problems. Approximately 450 former combatants repatriated from Liberia, Guinea and Côte d'Ivoire remained in internment camps.24 In September 2003, 168 Liberian child soldiers were identified in refugee camps in Sierra Leone. Many were stigmatized, violent and unable to accept civilian authority after years of witnessing and participating in combat and atrocities.25
Some 2,000 to 3,000 former child soldiers, some as young as ten years old, were reported in May 2003 to be working as illicit diamond miners, in extremely harsh conditions, in northern and eastern Sierra Leone.26 The government said that children were not employed in actual mining, as this was too dangerous, but were mainly used to carry miners' food and tools. However, children were reported to be used in virtually every aspect of mining.27 In March 2004, the UN Secretary-General expressed concern at child labour in the mines as well as unlicensed mining.28 A number of programs by NGOs, community based organizations and government agencies targeted the use of children in mining. By March 2004 these had resulted in the removal of 218 children from the mines, including 78 former child soldiers, as well as the placing of over 160 child miners, including 64 former child soldiers, in education or vocational training. Many of the former child soldiers had found it impossible to return home or to their former lives, and had seen mining as the only viable way to support their families.29
Other developments
In mid-2002 Sierra Leone ratified the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.30
* see glossary for information about internet sources
1 Amnesty International Report 2003, http://web. amnesty.org/library/engindex.
2 Twenty-first report of the UN Secretary-General on the UN Mission in Sierra Leone, UN Doc. S/2004/228, 19 March 2004, http://www.un.org/documents.
3 Amnesty International Report 2003.
4 Twenty-first report of the UN Secretary-General on the UN Mission in Sierra Leone, op. cit.
5 Human Rights Watch (HRW), The regional crisis and human rights abuses in West Africa, Briefing Paper to the UN Security Council, 20 June 2003, http://www.hrw.org.
6 Amnesty International Report 2003.
7 Initial report of Sierra Leone to UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, UN Doc. CRC/C/3/Add.43, 3 June 1996; UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Concluding observations: Sierra Leone, UN Doc. CRC/C/15/Add.116, 24 February 2000, http://www.ohchr.org.
8 Declaration, http://www.ohchr.org.
9 Twenty-first report of the UN Secretary-General on the UN Mission in Sierra Leone, op. cit.
10 International Crisis Group (ICG), Sierra Leone: The state of security and governance, Africa Report No. 67, 2 September 2003, http://www.crisisweb.org.
11 AFP, "UN-backed court in Sierra Leone will not try child soldiers", 27 November 2003.
12 AI, Sierra Leone: Special Court rejects amnesty for the worst crimes known to humanity, 18 March 2004.
13 AI, Liberia: The promises of peace for 21,000 child soldiers, 17 May 2004.
14 ICG, op. cit.
15 Post-conflict Reintegration Initiative for Development and Empowerment (PRIDE), Ex-combatants views of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Special Court in Sierra Leone, 12 September 2002.
16 Twenty-first report of the UN Secretary-General on the UN Mission in Sierra Leone, op. cit.
17 HRW, "We'll kill you if you cry": Sexual violence in the Sierra Leone conflict, January 2003.
18 IRIN, "Sierra Leone: Liberian child soldiers still make trouble without guns", 12 December 2003, at http://www.reliefweb.int.
19 Twenty-first report of the UN Secretary-General on the UN Mission in Sierra Leone, op. cit.
20 IRIN, op. cit.
21 UNICEF, Sierra Leone Donor Update, No. 2, March 2004, at www.reliefweb.int.
22 A. McIntyre and T. Thusi, "Children and youth in Sierra Leone's peace-building process", Institute for Security Studies, published in African Security Review, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2003.
23 PRIDE, op. cit.
24 Twenty-first report of the Secretary-General on the UN Mission in Sierra Leone, op. cit.
25 IRIN, op. cit.
26 AFP, "Blood diamonds: relative success of Kimberly Process in Sierra Leone", 20 May 2003.
27 Lansana Gberie, War and Peace in Sierra Leone: Diamonds, Corruption and the Lebanese Connection, Diamonds and Human Security Project, Partnership Africa Canada, November 2002.
28 Twenty-first report of the UN Secretary-General on the UN Mission in Sierra Leone, op. cit.
29 Confidential source, April 2004.
30 African Union, http://www.africa-union.org.
