The magnitude of sufferings faced by Sierra Leonean women in the last two years have raised alarms and generated serious concerns at home and abroad, especially from the international systems whose attentions are being drawn to the issues, to the peak that human rights organizations are now questioning the exact whereabouts of Sierra Leone women’s leaders while their compatriots continue to suffer in the hands of wicked men.
Talk less about what the few who are suffering in silent at their different places of work in the hands of cruel male superiors in almost every profession, from sexual harassment by their bosses to other forms of intimidations as well as from their political counterparts for public offices.
Since April 4th 2018 when Madam Sata Lamin was gang raped in Kailahun by several men for her loyalty and support to the main opposition All People’s Congress (APC) 2018 flag bearer aspirant, Dr Samura Mathew Wilson Kamara and the APC party. So many other unchecked and unreported abuses are being perpetuated against women by the opposite sex with impunity.
Forum Newspaper therefore condemn such act against women and they must henceforth be stopped now than later if we as a civilized nation in our ‘modern’ democratic indulgence are indeed serious about women’s equality and empowerment.
Women are everything on earth as the sage always goes; “best mum on earth” and had it not been women the world wouldn’t have reached where we are today as global citizens that is why women should be fully respected and defended against all forms of human rights abuses and inequalities in contemporary democratic governance societies. For they can now better perform all other functions the male dominated communities can do.
They too deserve respect and equal opportunities in every professional fields of life as it is being seen in certain professions wherein female specialists now in formerly male dominated fields.
Gone are the days when women were just relegated to back room roles in society. Those are now things of the past as women are now playing leading roles in nation building, as engineers, lawyers, medical doctors, pilots the list is long, civil rights advocates, making them major contributors to national development.
With all of the multiple contributions being made by women in society, yet Sierra Leonean women in the informal sector and those with less connections to the powers that be continue to suffer discriminations from their elites counterparts and state actors, as most times attentions and political appointments are only given to the bests, that is, those with the right political connections and if you don’t have one forget it. Then the much trumpeted equality in terms of opportunities for all, whereas in actual fact there is a huge social between the certain groups of women in nowadays Sierra Leoneans society.
Cases in point are the recent cabinet and other public and civil services appointments being made by President Julius Maada Bio. This discussion point should not be misconstrued to be directly touching the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLLP) government’s gender policy, though a talking point on such issues will be brought up in subsequent editions.
Further into the harsh treatment faced by women in Sierra Leone under the present dispensation, equal opportunities are expected from the very state leadership, not the unlawful arrests and over detentions of prominent women in deplorable Sierra Leone Police cells at the headquarters of the Criminal Investigations Department in Freetown without trails. Those were gross violations and abuses of the rights of those women, while women’s rights advocacy groups are deadly mute over the matters.
Had it not been the press release issued Wednesday 20th May, 2020 by the Sierra Leone Bar Association, questioning what they described in the statement as “scare-mongering by the Police”, Publisher and Proprietor of Awareness Times, Dr Sylvia Olayinka Blyden and the wife of Rtd. Major Paolo Conteh, Isata Sacoh would not have been charged to court, even though Mrs Conteh’s human rights was grossly abused by the Police at CID, yet they ended up bringing charges against her and sent to correctional centre by the Sierra Leone Judiciary.
That is unacceptable and Forum Newspaper out rightly condemns such unprofessional policing in its entirety and undemocratic dispensation of justice against Sierra Leoneans. What should be made categorically clear here is that such instable misuse of the judiciary does not in any help consolidate peace and democracy in Sierra Leone as they do not form part of modern democratic police principles and thus the leadership of the SLP must work within the legal framework of the laws of the country rather than always bowing to orders from above, bearing in mind that over detentions of those two women were unlawful and should not repeat in the SLP policing history anymore.
Unlawful and overdue detentions of especially women are not the kind of policing we were expecting from IGP Ambrose Michael Sovula. So Mr IGP as promised we expect better and professional performances from you now than never.
The wife of the former Internal Affairs and Defence Minister, Rtd. Alfred Paolo Conteh and the Publisher of Awareness Times, Dr Sylvia Olayinka Blyden who spent over twenty-one days in CID cells before charging them to court and Pademba Road prison do not deserve such treatments in the face of their female counterparts especially those in the civic rights advocacy realms.
Their issues around speedy and fair trials were expected to have been championed by the Women’s Forum, Fifty-Fifty Group, Women’s Situation Room to name just the few. But up to the time of sending Mrs Conteh no women’s rights advocates said a word regarding the rights abuses mated against her in the CID cell.
Have our women’s leader been swallowed by the huge pockets of the national pay master? Forum Newspaper only asks a legitimate question as we are expected to do for and on behalf of the people.
The women’s civic activists were all over the place making the loudest noise to ensure that the outcome of the conduct of the March 2020 elections were peaceful. And only to raise their voices in defence of two of them they could not. And we won’t stop asking the exact where about of the most vocal women Sierra Leone could boast of now in our embattled democratic dispensation.
For all we know and have come to see over the years they must give account of their leaderships to the women of this country, even if they have taken sides in mainstream politics, power must change hands one day, when their credibility shall have been destroyed by then.
Forum Newspaper therefore categorically condemn the long detentions of women by the Police at CID without trial, and urge women folks to join the popular calls by upright human rights organizations and the few women’s groups that have called on them and for their immediate releases from the present situations they are now, otherwise the world does not expect civic actors to remain so mute on their matters as if they are not women of Sierra Leonean women.
