By Alimamy Jalloh
President Julius Maada Bio and the First Lady have joined efforts to address the worrying rise of sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) in Sierra Leone. But their political will many believe is hindered by the inadequate capacity and the training of the police to properly and timely collect evidence and conduct investigations, causing many survivors to never see their case in court for justice.
Sixteen-year-old pupil, Salmata (not her real identity), alleged that she was raped by a man on the same day that she took the primary school examination (NPSE) in August 2019. She was only 14 years old at the time of the incident.
According to the Sexual Offences Act, 2012, as amended in 2019, “a person below the age of 18 is not capable of giving consent.” This means that anyone having sexual relationship with a child under the age of 18 is committing rape, even if the child technically consented to the act.
“It was around 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. when our next-door neighbor, who stays in an unfinished building, invited me to his apartment,” Salmata begins her story, visibly marked by the trauma she lived through. Her aunty found her eventually, in one of the rooms, in a state of shock. The rest of her words talk about trauma, stigma, and humiliation.
Salmata’s parents reported the alleged crime to the police the following day, but investigators from the Sierra Leone Police (SLP), went to investigate on September 22, 2019, when the perpetrator had already fled.
“Up to date, no arrest has been made,” Salmata’s mother said.
Only 3 out of every 100 SGBV survivors get justice
In a bid to expedite the trial of sexual offences, the Judiciary established the Sexual Offences Model Court (SOMC) in July 2020. Since then, a few more SGBV cases were fast-tracked, but the judiciary system cannot keep up with the high rate of reports. The SLP received 3,628 reports of SGBV in 2019.
For the entire year of 2020, the Rainbo Initiative received 3,584 reports of SGBV cases, of which 94% (3,339) were sexual assaults. The youngest victim was a 3 month old baby.
And between January and March 2021, Rainbo received 731 sexual assault and 67 physical assault reports through their five centres in Freetown, Makeni, Kono, Kenema and Bo, among which 130 survivors were pregnant as a result of the abuse.
According to the amended Sexual Offences Act, 2019, if the victim is impregnated as a result of the assault, the perpetrator may be charged with aggravated sexual assault.
Rainbo Initiative is one of the top National Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) in Sierra that provide free, quality and confidential health care services for survivors of SGBV.
However, between February 2019, when President Bio declared a National Emergency on Rape and Sexual Violence, and September 2020, only 470 of the more than 5,000 sexual penetration and rape cases were prosecuted to court, according to official SLP data. During that same period, courts nationwide recorded 152 convictions, of which 64 were delivered at the SOMC. This means that only about 3% of all reports of SGBV end up in a conviction.
Before reaching a court of justice, SGBV cases have to be investigated by the Sierra Leone Police. Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), Mohamed Mansaray, and National Coordinator for the Family Support Unit (FSU) stated that the delay in investigating SGBV cases has to do with the challenges the SLP is facing, which include lack of vehicles to trace the alleged perpetrators.
Another delay is caused by the process of taking the case files to the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP)’s Office for legal advice. Before submitting the files to the DPP, the SLP must also ensure that the victims receive a legal medical report. “This entire process, most times, take more than one month,” he said.
ASP Mansaray suggested that one necessary solution is to expedite the medical examination for the legal report, which should be done in no more than 48 hours of the report.
He also proposed that the government should recruit more doctors to provide support to victims and release their medical reports in a reasonable timeframe, and also to recruit more state counsels at the DPP’s Office for prosecution. Also, in order to properly collect and analyze the evidence from the crime scene, the SLP needs a forensics laboratory, also known as a crime lab, with trained technicians.
The Sexual Offences Amendment Act, 2019, states that a survivor of sexual offence “shall be entitled to free medical treatment and a free medical report from any Government Hospital in Sierra Leone or from any other Health unit duly accredited by the Ministry of Health and Sanitation for provision of medical treatment for sexual offences and related Health Care Services.”
Life in prison for adult perpetrators of rape
When the cases are delayed, the perpetrators get more opportunities to try and settle with the disillusioned victim or their family. “The tendency for compromise while the perpetrators are in detention is a threat to justice,” Mansaray explained.
The Sexual Offences Amendment Act of 2019 criminalizes out of court settlements and compromise: “A person who engages or attempts to engage in a settlement or compromise on any matter in which a sexual offence is alleged to have occurred, commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine of 10 million Leones or to a term of imprisonment of not less than one (1) year and not more than ten (10) years or to both fine and imprisonment.”
The Act provides a sentence of not less than 15 years in prisonment for any adult convicted of intentionally raping another person without that person’s consent. However, if the perpetrator of the rape is a child, if convicted, the child could be sentenced to no less than 5 years and no more than 15 years in jail. Under the Child Right Act, 2007, a child is considered a person under the age of 18 years old.
A young person who commits rape is liable upon conviction to no less than 10 years of life in prison. Under the Child Right Act, a young person is anyone between the age of 18 and 25 years old.
Survivors and their family wait in vain
The case of a 14 year-old child who was alleged to have been sexually assaulted multiple times in November 2020 by a ‘well-known person’ in her community at Portee, East Freetown, is another example of delayed justice.
According to official documents, and her family’s account, the girl was sexually assaulted multiple times by a local watch mechanic. The father of the minor said that since the matter was reported to the police, the perpetrator was arrested and immediately released on bail, but the matter is yet to be charged to court. The father said that the SLP sent the file to the DPP’s office for legal advice. However, nothing has been heard since.
David Dwight Panda Noah, Executive Director of United Youths for Peace, a Civil Society Organization, working with the Hands off Our Girls Campaign, believed that some SGBV cases are compromised by local chiefs or men in position of authority. He cited a recent case that came to his organization’s attention that prosed significant challenges.
“Tracing the location of the crime scene or the town of the victim was very difficult because the perpetrator used the chief to silence the matter.” Panda Noah stated that the perpetrator’s family gave the victim’s father a large sum of money to move the victim to the next village in order to cover up the case. Although the mother of the victim originally reported the case to the authorities, she later became afraid. This is the case, Noah said, with most SGBV victims in rural areas, who are often afraid that local authorities will turn the blame on them based on customs and traditions.
Noah proposed, as solution, to employ many more trained social workers to complement the investigation of the Police’s Family Support Units in the provinces to pave the way for speedy trials and justice for SGBV survivors.
Copyright © 2021 Politico Online
