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DCOF Country Programs: Sierra Leone
Helping the
Children Left Behind
Implementing Partners: UNICEF
Funding Period: September 2002 - March 2004
Amount: $750,000
Purpose: Help girls and boys abducted during
war and other displaced children reintegrate into
their families and communities.
Objectives:
- Identify and provide appropriate services to
1,000 girls and young women.
- Trace the families of 65 percent of the identified
girls and young women.
- Strengthen the capacity of communities,
government, and NGOs to prevent sexual violence and meet
the special needs of its victims.
- Identify and publicize best practices that can
contribute to more effective protection of children
and women in peace processes and disarmament, demobilization, and
reintegration programs.
Reintegration of War-Affected Children
Implementing Partners: International Rescue Committee (IRC)
Funding Period: July 2000 - July 2004
Amount: $1,590,571
Purpose: Build mechanisms for and ensure the
successful reintegration of child soldiers and other children
displaced by war.
Accomplishments:
- Facilitated the disarmament
and demobilization of 2,000 child soldiers.
- Cared for 2,000 children in
interim care centers run by IRC.
- Reunited 1,200 children with their
families and assisted with their reintegration
(school or skills training).
- Placed 87 children in foster care,
54 of whom were subsequently reunited with families.
- Supported 93 small-scale reintegration
projects in communities to which children were returning
(skills training workshops, vegetable gardening, sports
clubs, cultural performance groups, etc.). These
projects directly benefited 510 children, who actively
participated in the program, and indirectly helped 4,500.
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The first three decades of Sierra Leone's
independence were characterized by multiple coups and unrest.
The turbulence escalated in 1991 and ushered in a decade
of civil war known globally for its viciousness and brutality.
One participant in the civil war was the
Revolutionary United Front (RUF), a group that gained
political power after the Army of Sierra Leone overthrew
the elected government in 1997. The RUF was known
for abducting children during village raids. Many of
these children were forced to commit atrocities against
their own families or villages as a means of preventing
them from returning to their homes, a strategy that
enabled the RUF to turn them into fighters. Many of the
girls abducted were sexually abused, with some
eventually becoming “bush wives,” informally attached to a
single combatant.
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UNICEF estimates that, during the war, more than 10,000 Sierra Leonian children
were separated from their families through abduction and population displacement. |
By 2002, war finally gave way to peace in Sierra
Leone. From January 2001 through January 2002, a total
of 43,685 adults and 4,543 children under 18 were officially disarmed and
demobilized from the fighting forces. Peaceful elections were held in
May 2002.
USAID's support for children affected by armed conflict in Sierra Leone
beganwith a DCOF grant to UNICEF in 1999. Since then, DCOF has provided UNICEF with a total of
$2,986,065 and IRC with an additional $1,590,571 to help children affected
by armed conflict. Initially, this funding went to help
trace the surviving family members of separated children
and to reunite families. Beginning in 2001, however, as
the situation began to permit large-scale demobilization
of child soldiers from the RUF and civilian defense
forces, UNICEF and IRC began using DCOF support to
help reintegrate child soldiers into society.
UNICEF has passed most of its funding through
to Sierra Leonian NGOs that are working directly
with displaced children. Using this model, UNICEF
has helped to establish an effective Child Protection
Network with 40 members, including United Nations bodies, national and
international NGOs, and government ministries.
Reintegration efforts in Sierra Leone have
proven successful. Given their years of living in the bush
and horrendous experiences with fighting and
death, conventional wisdom would suggest that
childhood might be lost forever for most children associated
with the fighting forces, and that reintegration into
their families and communities would be difficult.
However, although community members initially expressed
hatred and fear of children who had been abducted by
the RUF, painstaking work at the grassroots level
has permitted the reintegration of former child soldiers.
A DCOF assessment team found that many of the demobilized children were in
school or learning a trade. Preliminary findings of a survey suggest that about
90 percent of the former child soldiers have been able
to reintegrate well into families and communities.
While this success is impressive and important, there
are many other children for whom things have not
gone well in Sierra Leone. Of particular concern are
the girls abducted by the RUF who did not go through
the demobilization process. Many of these abducted
girls, some of whom are now young women, remain
under the control of their commanders or “bush
husbands.” DCOF's most recent grant to UNICEF
will support its efforts to provide these girls, and other
children who remain separated, the chance to go home at
last. IRC is also using DCOF funds for this purpose.
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