Rape Menace on Rampage in Sierra Leone

The spate of rape and other sexual harassments have been very high on the news outlets in Sierra Leone. From 2003 right up to 2007, news about rape and sexual violence were frequently heard in South Africa. News about such social misnomer was high on the BBC and other international news agencies around the world. Statistics on rape cases always top hospital lists in Pretoria and other big cities in South Africa. It was heard between hours that countless of women even to babies the age of two- three months were been raped by men over the age of forty.

But today, that awful menace of rape has turned its ugly face on Sierra Leone. With such negative development becoming the order of the day the country, it is obvious that Sierra Leone is becoming another South Africa in the making. Certainly, the rape menace has engulfed the entire country in spite of the tremendous efforts made by Human Rights campaigners and women’s rights groups countless women and girls under the age of fifteen have become victims of rape.

Even though the brutal rebel war has ended 8 years ago, the nightmare of rape is making sensitive headlines on our local tabloids on a daily basis. The issue of rape is no longer a fairy- tale in Sierra Leone. At first, when these ugly incidents of rape started flooding news headlines, people thought it was as a result of the war. During the war period in Sierra Leone rape was been used by RUF rebels as a weapon to unleash horror on their captives.

In retrospect, immediately after the war, in Kono, an eastern District of Sierra Leone, rape cases were been considered as aftermath of the war. There, scores of women and under age girls became victims of the newly re-integrated ex- combatants who then became known perpetrators. Now as the warring days are over, rape has accelerated to a certain level that one is beginning to marvel what would become of the future girls in this country. As rape is not a spontaneous act, rapists in Sierra Leone have unceasingly targeted young girls. Fortunately for some perpetrators of rape, they have done the act repeatedly with little or no punitive measures leveled against them with social and other health implications like HIV/Aids lining the issue.

Big cities like Kono, Bo, Kenema and Makeni have experienced the rape menace in a countless number of times. Last year, while this Sierra Express Media reporter was on a holiday treat in Kono, he was nauseated by the startling news of a rape of a 12 year old girl by one Uncle Mondeh, who happens to be a chorister in the New Apostolic Church in Kono. Similar incidences of rape continue to make the rounds in the northern District of Bombali. Quite recently it reports made the rounds on the news of a rape perpetrated on an 11 year old girl by one Moses a trader at Dan Street Market in Freetown. While police were investigating the case, this perpetrator of the rape is said to have bribed the family members of the rape victim in order for them to sweep the matter under the carpet.

This is a complete menace as families in Sierra Leone whose rights have been violated by these ruthless rapists are in the habit of paying off victims in order to avoid court prosecution. “Such act of bribing families to pervert the course of justice is bad, as it gives scope to rape perpetrators to continue this unlawful act of destroying our girl-child unabated”, cried one mother of two rape victims.

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