Sierra Leone

Anna Marriott reports from Sierra Leone, where campaigners’ efforts are making a real difference to people’s lives.

Last year Oxfam supporters called on the government to help make healthcare free in a number of developing countries. Ian Sullivan looks at the impact of this in Sierra Leone.

In the recent conflicts in Darfur, Uganda, Congo, and Bosnia, rape has been used systematically as a tool of war. The horrors perpetrated on civilian women and girls have been a key part of fighting forces’ strategy, a deliberate method for advancing the war effort.

Having refused to testify against Charles Taylor, the thuggish former Liberian president currently being tried at the Hague for war crimes, it now seems likely that the supermodel Naomi Campbell will be subpoenaed instead.

The Koinadugu Women’s Vegetable Farmers’ Cooperative delivered the first consignment of rice ever purchased by WFP in Sierra Leone. Twenty five metric tons of locally produced rice was purchased through the Purchase for Progress (P4P) project to be distributed through the school meals programmes. This rice - enough to feed 3,800 primary school children for 3 months– is the first batch of a total of 500 metric tons of food that WFP plans to buy this year from 10 different organizations in Sierra Leone.

“You wouldn’t understand this country if you stayed here for five years. I don’t understand it,” says Nestor Cummings-John, the head of the Sierra Leone Women’s Movement (“faute de mieux,” he replies when I ask why the group is run by a man).

I had not previously heard of this, but on April 27th, Sierra Leone will begin offering free healthcare to children under 5 and breast-feeding mothers. Via the Huffington Post, SOS Children’s Village which picked this up, has expressed some concern about the country’s ability to provide these services.