After making some very good re -search on Child slavery in Sierra Leone for my weekly report. It came to my conclusion that child slavery is not only on the mining area of Sierra Leone but it went as far as relatives selling their own flesh and blood out of selfish ambition sometimes even family even give out their children because of poverty. Most people came to poor families and tell them that, they will take their children to Europe and other places around the world for good life and education, so these families gives their children away and thinking that these poor and helpless children are enjoying the better life of rich man children. These children have been taking away to mining areas, farming and even to countries like Libya for proposition. This boy and girls are sexual abuse and destroyed their children lively hood.
My phone conversation with Justina Conteh, one of the two CO-Founder of ST.GEORGE´S foundation in Sierra Leone. From what I gather, very big work has to be done with child slavery, after rescuing this lucky children from there slavery camp, it comes new problems to rehabilitating them, some of them are badly hurt mentally and physically, so the foundation find it very hard to take in more children, as for now they have 2000 children in the center. According to Justina Coneth, even more children work in family businesses or on family farms. Overall, statistics show that an overwhelming 71.6 percent of children between the ages of 5-14 years are working, either in paid or unpaid work.
The Children and what we can do for them.
When I ask her again what can be done and she told me,
The project really has changed a lot since they started and it’s a lot more
complicated. The biggest issue is that most of the children have now been reunified
and what they could really class as social work has grown out of all proportion. They
presently have 40 boys and 15 girls in secondary school, they even planning to make a new camp if they have the money. she also told me that more kids are coming in every day rescued by the police, she told me that they cannot fill in more
the reason for not filling up at the moment is purely financial but she is
determined to get those places filled as soon as they can. For those that are living with us the programme remains pretty well the same – get the children in, a healthy diet, medical care, lots of drama, dance and sport, build their self esteem, self confidence and spiritual lives and of course get them all back into school and
When ask about their policy of visiting the center
The rules to follow are:
(1) All children will be treated with respect and dignity.
(2) Staff at the centre in Sierra Leone have authority over ALL guests.
(3) No visitor is to be alone with one child unsupervised without
specific approval.
(4) Groups should always, where possible, try to include at least 2
leaders, preferably one male and one female.
(5) Photographs and video clips can only be taken with the
permission of the staff and the children themselves and can only
be used or displayed for public viewing with the permission of the
St George Foundation. Do not make or use any material that
could possibly embarrass that child in later life.
(7) Anyone not abiding by the guidelines set out may be asked to
leave and any photographic material confiscated. St George will
take legal action if any laws are broken.
(8) Direct contact with individual children is not permitted. Any
contacts with children must go through the staff. Phone numbers
are not to be given to children.
(9) Giving gifts to individual children is not permitted. It causes
jealousy amongst the children and can cause real problems for
the child concerned. Gifts are not banned and they can be given
via the staff at appropriate times, but the best gifts are ones that
can be shared.
(10) When talking with the children we ask that they should not
be asked questions of a personal nature regarding their life on the
street.
(11) Under no circumstances may anyone enter into any private
arrangements with the children or their families. No one may
apply for any legal documents in the children’s names or interfere
with the programme that they are on. Being a sponsor gives noone
rights over the child.
What to be done from my own point
The problem comes from the Government and the local government of Sierra Leone, the government is not doing anything towards combating child slavery. It should be more communication in the radio, tv, from town to town talk and person to person talk because this poor families do not know what is going on with their children neither do they know where they are. I will be posting every week a report on my blog and even play my own part by them to spreading the news on facebook and any other social networking. I also got a video from their center. Please TAKE A LOOK AT THE VIDEO
