Habibatu Kamara tie-dyes bedsheets, a profit-making skill she learned through IRC training as a member of the Pendembu Women’s Action Group.  Photo: Fatmata Mansaray

In Kailahun District, the region hardest hit by the war, GBV helped four communities build Women’s Centres, organize Women’s Action Groups, train women in income generating skills, and raise community awareness about GBV. That women have a place to meet and talk and work together makes all the difference in the world.  Each of these communities is served by a social worker and a community mobilizer, supporting survivors of violence and working to organize the community for progressive action.Now GBV works to make sure these programs will be sustained.  The Rainbo Centres will be integrated into the Ministry of Health and Sanitation.  The Women’s Centres and the land they stand upon already belong to the women of their respective communities.  Here in Kailahun District, the GBV team works in partnership with others to strengthen local and governmental bodies as they work to prevent and respond to violence against women.   Two weeks ago, assisted by an IRC doctor, they held a workshop for health care workers and law enforcement officials on the recommended treatment of sexual assault survivors.  And last week the GBV Manager was in court again, reminding the magistrate of new legal procedures in rape cases.  Her work produced that success story I told you about. (See Posting #3).

All over the country, the GBV team has been holding informative discussions about three important gender laws passed in June 2007—laws on domestic violence, registration of customary marriages and divorces, and the devolution of property—all aimed at improving the legal status of women.  GBV produces a lot of radio programs too for broadcast on local stations.  Just this afternoon I stopped at a tiny shop up the street to buy some peanuts and found a little group of men bent over a portable radio, listening to a program about wife beating.Then there’s our Global Crescendo project that encourages women to look at their own lives—with digital cameras—and advocate for themselves.  I’ll tell you how it’s going next time.

The Kailahun-based GBV team quietly kept up pressure on the reluctant magistrate. Photo: Ann Jones

This time, Natsnet Zerizghi, GBV Startup Program Manager in Kailahun, went to visit the magistrate in his chambers to let him know that IRC GBV was concerned about the case.  At the same time, rumors came to IRC that the perpetrator’s mother was spreading money around.  She was said to be “well connected” to the magistrate.  Natsnet and other GBV staffers made another courtesy call.So the dance went on—and off—for months.  Any mother, trying to bring a case before the court, would have been forced to quit long before by the sheer unaffordable cost of hiring a ride on a motorbike to get from Koindu to the court in Kailahun. The round trip costs more dollars than this mother sees in weeks.  But in this case, IRC kept coming up with the fare.  And Natsnet and others from the Kailahun GBV team kept going to visit the magistrate who seemed to suggest, more and more strongly, that there was little evidence against the confessed perpetrator.Then, just the other day the case was called again.  The mother came from Koindu, again  at IRC’s expense, and this time she brought her 7-year-old daughter, the rape victim.This time the GBV team asked many other women from the local Women’s Action Group to come to court.  Men sympathetic to the issue came to court too. They sat there—ordinary women and men—filling the benches of the courtroom, and among them sat a 7-year-old girl.  Mary Sheku, the GBV social worker, observed that the magistrate seemed terrified.  All these women were watching.

Natsnet Zerizghi from Eritrea, Startup Program Manager in Kailahun, snapped this photo of thewomen and men who packed the benches of the magistrate’s court to show support for the raped child. Photo: Natsnet Zerizghi

Within minutes the magistrate found ample cause to refer the case to the High Court in Kenema for judgment—as he should have done months before.  The judge of the High Court in Kenema is a woman who doesn’t mess around.  It’s now likely that the confessed perpetrator will serve some real jail time, and that everyone in Koindu and the surrounding area will hear about it.  This case will serve as a precedent—and a warning.  It has already made big news in Koindu.This result was brought about by mainly by one brave, persistent mother and the terrifying presence of women, watching, in the courtroom.  Women who, by the way, duly noted the effect of their solidarity on the judge.  They’ll use that power again. So there’s the success story.  Small.  But still reverberating—and making women in Kailahun District “plenty, plenty gladdy.”More from Ann 

A Global Crescendo photographer took this photo of her own children. A poor widow, she can’tafford o send her children to school but keeps them at home to work.Other photographers labeled this practice “child abuse.” Photo: Mamie Mustapha

When war ends, things usually get worse for women. As I’ve mentioned before, when rape is used as a tactic of war—as it was here in Sierra Leone—it becomes a habit that continues and even grows worse long after the official end of conflict. These days rape is widespread, teenage and very young girls the favorite targets. Here, as in Liberia, the rapist is often a member or friend of the extended family, and usually he can persuade the impoverished mother of the rape victim to let the matter drop in exchange for cash. I know of a widow who settled with the man who had raped her 10-year-old daughter for the equivalent of $13.35. The small sum is a measure of her poverty. Later, when she regretted the compromise and wanted to cancel it, she couldn’t raise the money to pay the rapist back.Domestic violence—wife beating, marital rape, emotional abuse, torture, economic deprivation, and the like—also seems to increase in frequency and severity. Just yesterday I interviewed a 25-year-old woman whose husband—a 40-year-old former-combatant still in the army—tore off her clothes, beat her, bit her, and slashed her face with a knife. The man had already left her and their two children to live with a new wife. He said he’d heard, mistakenly, that she was seeing another man. While he was at it, he stole all her money—the profits of her business that has supported the family for years—and all her trade goods. She feels lucky to have escaped with her life. Last week, in another district, a man cut off his wife’s head.

This pregnant teenager was in her last year of secondary school and planning for college when she“got a belly.” Forced to leave school, she remains at home, deeply depressed and fearfulthat her family may throw her out. The admitted father of the expected child has repudiated herand continues his studies. Photo: Mariama Mansaray

The war in Sierra Leone left many, many widows with young children to raise and no means of support. Widows worry themselves sick because they can’t afford to send their kids to school. Often they can’t feed them. War also left many orphans. Many young girls and women are on their own. Girls growing up in poverty, without education, are easy prey for men on the prowl. Sexual exploitation of young girls is commonplace. When they “get a belly,” the man vanishes, leaving the young girl with a child of her own, an additional burden on a family’s scant resources. Schoolgirls too are sexually exploited by their classmates and often by their teachers. Getting a belly disqualifies them for education; a pregnant girl must leave school, though the boy or man who impregnated her suffers no consequences. Girls who dreamed of becoming nurses or teachers or lawyers to contribute to their community become shameful liabilities instead. Think about the dent that makes in the future of a small town. Think about what it does to the girl.Yes, I know you’re impatient with me. I’m always telling you these depressing stories, leaving you to wonder what in the world you can do about it. That’s where the IRC GBV program comes in. It’s taking on these problems and making change. Next time I’ll tell you a success story. I promise.

Part 1 - Kailahun, Sierra Leone: It’s time to catch you up on the progress of the special GBV project we call A Global Crescendo: Women’s Voices from Conflict Zones. We’ve moved on to country number three: Sierra Leone. As you know, if you’ve been following my blogs, we started the project last fall in Cote d’Ivoire where some brave village women made dramatic changes in their homes and communities. The next stop was Liberia, where we worked both in the capital and in rural villages of northern Lofa County with courageous women determined to make change. Now we’ve slipped across another border to Sierra Leone, the third West African country struggling to recover from war.

Let me quickly remind you of what these countries have been through. The war in Cote d’Ivoire was the shortest, lasting little over a year –2002 to 2003—thanks to prompt intervention by French, African, and UN peacekeepers. The war in Liberia came in three successive waves, lasting altogether 14 years, from 1989 to 2003; and it fueled war in Sierra Leone. Guerillas of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) of Sierra Leone trained in Liberia and invaded their own country in 1991. The war drew many players and lasted a decade, until January 2002.

Just by looking around me, I can tell you that this war was the worst. I’m in Kailahun District, where the war began and ended, smack up against the borders of Liberia and Guinea. The last time I saw such thorough devastation was in Kabul, not long after the initial American bombing. Another indicator: Sierra Leone has replaced Afghanistan as the poorest country on the planet.

The war in Sierra Leone became notorious for its trademark atrocity: amputation—that is, cutting off arms and legs. Rape, enslavement, and torture of women were less conspicuous atrocities, but more widespread.

From the very beginning, this war targeted civilians. RUF leader Foday Sankoh recruited followers with talk of overthrowing the corrupt government in Freetown for the good of the people. But his invading army was little more than a gang, reportedly numbering fewer than 150 men. He got more troops by abducting them. His tactics were simple: invade a village; terrorize, torture and kill most of the villagers; take away those who might serve as soldiers, porters, laborers, or “wives”—that is sex slaves. (Usually the porters, forced laborers, and “wives” were one and the same.) Many of those killed in every village and almost all of those abducted were women and children.

Men and boys still labor in the mud of the Tongo diamond fields, nearly exhausted to finance the war. Even Nigerian peacekeeping soldiers have quit the army to jin the miners in search of riches. Photo: Ann Jones

This war, like the war in Liberia, was waged by “leaders” hungry for power and wealth—specifically control of the country’s valuable natural resources, especially its “blood” diamonds. Both “leaders”—Foday Sankoh in Sierra Leone and Charles Taylor in Liberia—got their tactical training in Libya from Muammar Gaddafi who, for reasons of his own, wanted to see West Africa destabilized. It was Taylor who backed Sankoh’s RUF guerrillas, saw them trained in Liberia, and launched them against Sierra Leone.

In the end, Foday Sankoh died before his trial for war crimes could be completed. But just last month the Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague resumed the proceedings begun last June against Charles Taylor. He faces 11 charges for war crimes—related to matters including terrorizing civilians, murder, rape, sexual slavery, amputations, and enslavement—committed not against his own country but against his neighbors, the people of Sierra Leone.

The whole town of Koindu in Kailahun District was destroyed in the war. These children have lived their whole lives among the ruins. Photo: Ann Jones

The good news about these wars is that they have officially ended. But for women and children—as we’ve learned elsewhere—war is never really over. I’ll tell you more next time about how they’re getting on in Sierra Leone.

Ann is blogging the year-long project from West Africa. If you’re just joining us, you can read her earlier series of posts from Cote d’Ivoire and Liberia here.

Monrovia, Liberia  Then it’s showtime. The first all women’s photography exhibition in the history of Liberia is getting underway. The women have arranged their photographs on the walls in two groups.  The first group of photos shows the problems we’ve been talking about: environmental pollution, lack of clean water, poverty, hunger, child labor, lack of affordable schools, inadequate heath care, unemployment, and raging violence against women and children.

The other group of photos shows the hopes and dreams of these women.  There are photos of women attending literacy classes, women selling fish and fabrics in the market, women armed with brooms and wheelbarrows cleaning their own communities, women doing hairdressing and tie-dying and tailoring, and—most important to these women—laughing girls in uniform heading for school.  There are men in the photos too, though not many.  Some can be seen working side by side with women harvesting rice.  Three others can be seen laughing together as one of them cooks dinner.  That’s Oritha’s photo; she proudly titles it “Gender Equality.”

In this image of a woman safeguarding her children, Topoe Village photographer Rebecca Freeman
perfectly captured the spirit of strong Liberian women—the spirit of all the Global Crescendo
photographers. Photo: Rebecca Freeman

Finally there’s the photo of the Lofa County Superintendent of Roads mounted on her motorcycle, about to don her shimmering red helmet striped with green and gold.  The woman of the future, ready to ride.

But there’s a problem.  Two of the photographers are missing.  At last they arrive and explain in unsteady voices.  They’ve been busy with police and community leaders and the family of a girl found early this morning, raped and mutilated and drowned in a pool of wastewater where only a short time ago another girl, a teenager, was found raped and murdered.  The girl found this morning was still wearing the pretty ruffled dress she’d put on to go to church yesterday with her mother.  It was the mother’s duty to tally the collection, and when she looked up, her daughter was gone.  The child was two years old.

Liberian women dream of making their country safe for schoolgirls like these, even as they
investigate the rape and murder of girls in their communities.  They work for a better future
for their daughters. Photo: Komassa Malay

The women’s dreams of the future are eclipsed by the violent present, even as the guests invited to the photo show begin to enter the hall.  Members of local and international NGOs take their seats, along with a representatives from the Ministry of Gender.  A big delegation from IRC arrives, looking smart in bright IRC tee shirts.  Soon the hall we’ve rented is filled to capacity.  It really is showtime.

One by one, the women rise and stand before their photographs and speak of things they believe must be changed.  It’s their custom to introduce themselves by saying, “I stand here before you.”  I find the practice deeply moving, emphasizing as it does the solitariness and vulnerability of the speaker—her evident and undeniable courage.  Some are beyond courageous.  They’re so excited they pound their photos for emphasis and knock them right off the wall.

Early in my stay in Liberia, a market woman told me that even after all the years of warfare, rape, violence, desperation, and death, “Women can still sell fish.”  I could only wonder where she found that fortitude.  But now Anna rises to speak of the failed water supply and environmental pollution.  Kulah speaks of the need to educate girls, not mutilate them.  Kebeh speaks of justice for survivors of rape and abandonment.

And here they are: the Global Crescendo photographers from Lofa County. Photo: Ann Jones

Then Hajah stands up to say: “My parents never sent me to school. . . . But now I stand here before you.  IRC came and gave us cameras to take photos. I was afraid because I have not touched a camera before, but I had begged my husband to go to Voinjama to take photos. Yes, I begged him because he still has power. And he allowed me to go.  I got the camera and carried it home and sat down. My husband said, ‘What is this?’  I said, ‘We women, we coming together.’  He said, ‘I see that camera. What can you do with it?’  I said, ‘Sit down.  Let me take your picture.’  I took it and showed it to him. I said, ‘You see this? You must know that women, we are able to take pictures too.’”

Then Sangai rises and her voice fills the room with the song that has become the anthem of the Global Crescendo project in Liberia.  She sings:  “People, life can change.  We never knew.”  All the women join her, as they’ve done so often during the past few weeks, swaying and clapping, harmonizing that repeated chorus.  “My life can change. I never knew.”

And the Global Crescendo photographers from Montserrado County.  Photo: Ann Jones

“I used to beat my wife,” Sangai sings.  “I will never beat my wife.  We never knew.
A bad man can become a good man.  A good man can become a better man. We never knew.”

“My life can change. I never knew.”

“A woman can become a president, oh, woman can be a Minister. We never knew.
People, oh, life can change, oh, go tell the people that life can change.  We never knew.”

“Our life can change.  We never knew.”

This is the last of Ann’s posts from Liberia. Sign up here to get an e-mail alert when Ann starts blogging from her next destination.