Sierra Leone Country Report on Conjugal Slavery in War and Conflict

Sierra Leone Country Report on Conjugal Slavery in War and Conflict

Authors: Rosaline Mcarthy, Gladys Hastings-Spaine, Rosetta Sovula and Annie Bunting
Date: August 2020

Executive Summary:
This country report on Sierra Leone is written in collaboration with Women’s Forum Sierra Leone and the Conjugal Slavery in War partnership project. This report works to amplify and disseminate knowledge concerned with conjugal slavery in conflict situations, specifically in Sierra Leone. It succinctly outlines and privileges the experiences and voices of Sierra Leonean women abducted and forced into ‘marriages’ with rebel soldiers and commanders while in captivity.  This concise report includes content from in-depth interviews conducted by Women’s Forum in 2013 across various communities in the country.

By centering the voices and words of the respondents, this report contributes a better and more robust understanding of how conjugal slavery is understood within Sierra Leone across time, space and place.

In addition, the distinctive impact of this report supports victim-survivor findings and grounds their perspectives and positions around reparations and their ongoing needs to provide concrete findings on how to move forward regarding conjugal slavery in conflict affected communities in Sierra Leone.

Full report available here