"NGOs exploit children" - chides children’s leader

Sierra Leone's Child Commissioner and Kono District President of Children’s Forum Network has called into question the relationship between child rights activists, other non-governmental organisations and children in whose name these organisations raise funds. Eddie Sam told Politico in Kono that “of all the projects designed by NGOs for children in Sierra Leone only about 20% of the benefit gets to needy children in the country.” He went on that while children continued to suffer and languish on the streets NGOs ride in air-conditioned vehicles, adding “This is really frustrating”. He also complained that child mining was going on without any efforts being made to stop it. However the acting base manager of World Vision Sierra Leone in Kono, Joseph Benya, denies the allegations saying their major focus had always been children. He noted that while their operations did not cover the district headquarter town of Koidu but rural communities in the district, they had nevertheless looked at health and education. He confirmed that child-mining and related abuses were on the increase and that government must intervene immediately. Meanwhile, the social development officer in the ministry of children’s affairs in Kono, Mabinty Mansaray, said the children’s network, which operates under her ministry, had valid concerns and that they were aware of the suffering of the children in Kono district, especially in the mine. “But our ministry is the least funded in the country and therefore we are unable to undertake most of the activities in the year,” she said, adding that they sometimes do not get funds from the ministry of finance at all. The ministry official claimed that in 2012 they only received first and second quarters of their allocations from the government, on which he blamed their inability to effectively deliver in the district. Mabinty revealed that they only received Le4 million from the Kono District Council and Le1 million from the Koidu City Council on a quarterly basis which she said was not enough to even carry out one operation in the district. She agreed that NGOs were not forthcoming to assist them address the perennial problems children and women faced in the district.