Protesting street traders
Thousands of street traders commonly called Abacha Babes, thronged the streets of the Sierra Leonean capital Freetown today not to sell their wares but to protest against government for the planned clearing of the street of traders.
It followed a Sunday 5 January deadline announcement to clear the central business district of street traders, exactly one year since President Ernest Bai Koroma declared an operation aimed at doing just that, which has been criticised as a failure by some civil society organisations chiefly Health Alert which had called for it.
The protesting market women who carried placards denouncing the move and calling for the construction of a market place for them, went to the law courts building, State House and Youyi Building which houses most government ministries including trade.
Mostly supporters of the governing All People's Congress (APC) party, they chanted against the planned action and carried placards saying they should be provided with a spacious market before they were asked to leave the streets, while others wondered whether the mayor, Franklyn Bode-Gibson, was indeed a Sierra Leonean. Another placard read, also in Krio, urged the mayor to fulfil his promise to build a market for the street traders.
Some of them told Politico that they would resist any attempt to remove them from the streets before markets were built for them. "How do we feed and school our children when we have nothing else to do but to sell on the streets?" one of them asked, rather rhetorically.
It is not immediately clear whether government has responded to their protest.
(C) Politico Online 03/01/14
