Archive for the ‘Sierra Leone’ Category
While we're on courts…a trip back to Sierra Leone
Where earlier this week three members of the Revolutionary United Front were convicted of all kinds of Awful Stuff. The RUF is rebel group behind the most famous of the abuses in Sierra Leone’s war, the hacking off of people’s limbs.
Among that Awful Stuff were convictions for forced marriage, the first ever in the [...]
“It is finished in my heart,” or, how to forgive the man who cut off your arm
I don’t have any idea. But here’s what Temba Kekura told me (this is the last part of my Sierra Leone series; if you read yesterday’s post, you haven’t seen this yet):
Before the war, when his village and his family and his body were whole, Temba Kekura was a farmer. He had few things, [...]
Really, I went to Sierra Leone; or, A look at reconciliation, village by village
Way back in March, the Christian Science Monitor sent me to Sierra Leone to report a series on ‘grassroots reconciliation,’ for lack of a better term, after the war there.
It’s finally seen the light of day, in a three-parter which began yesterday. Here’s the setup:
John Caulker might know the rough, red-rock roads of rural [...]
Apologies–mine, and otherwise
Oh, so many apologies.
* First, to my few but devoted commenters–commentors? how is it spelled? this new internet age!–whose wonderful thoughts I’ve let languish in the “awaiting approval” pipeline. Sorry about that; it’s been a bit crazy here, and I didn’t want to click in and out until I could really engage.
So, here [...]
A step, or a leap, or maybe nothing at all, for African women
About a week ago, the Christian Science Monitor ran an article I wrote from Sierra Leone on a new law protecting women in war zones. The law–less a law than an international precedent which may, or may not, become influential–categorizes the crime of forced marriage as a crime against humanity, for the first time [...]
There are only so many ways to say something
Earlier this week, I went through recording after recording from Sierra Leone–interviews with forced wives, and with women who suffered every denigrating crime even without being taken in marriage; interviews with ex-rebels, one so young he said he had to be taught how to rape; hour after hour of awful stories, each living in the [...]
I am a freelance journalist and multimedia producer who covers human rights, Africa and foreign affairs. [