By Mohamed Konneh
Youth and Child Advocacy Network (YACAN) in collaboration with the Out of the Shadows on Thursday 13th October 2020 launched the Global OOSI Index at the New Brookfields Hotel in Freetown.
The Out Of Shadow Index report 2022 is a report about child sexual exploitation and abuse that is happening at alarming rates in every country around the world.
The report presents a new accountability mechanism to lift up successful policies and identify gaps in existing system. The report also serves as a government report card on 60 countries efforts to both prevent and respond to child sexual exploitation.
Launching the report the Deputy Minister of Social Welfare, Mohamed Haji Kella thanked YACAN for the report noting that the out of shadow report is done by non governmental organisation and when once that is done government will come out with what they are doing in salvaging the situation.
He said child sexual exploitation is real and from reports across the country gives a clear picture of the incident.
The Deputy Minister said child sexual exploitation and abuse is something that needs attention noting that some five years back talking about child exploitation was a taboo.
‘Exploiting the child sexually comes in many forms. There are static forms of abuse and this is common within the family setting. Another aspect is child trafficking and this is done locally and international. The third one is the online form of exploitation. We need to understand all these three forms and that child sexual exploitation has nothing like consent, the Deputy Minister said.’
Mr. Kella noted that there is also the aspect of in balance power relation. This can be wealthy people and elderly people who can as well be fathers, uncles to these children.
He said when it comes to law Sierra Leone is not short of laws.
‘The laws are there but the institutional challenges is what we are still grappling with. We have progress in dealing with these challenges and that we now have a special court where offenders of cases of child abuse are tried, he said.’
He there is every need for us to understand how these things are done.
‘We have the perpetrators on one end and those revolving around the issue. As a ministry and a country we now have safe houses but all of these are not enough we need consented effort in this direction, he said.’
The Deputy Minister also noted that there is need to understand the social norms and how it plays around child sexual exploitation.
Mr. Charles Vandi, from the Ministry of Gender and Children’s Affairs making his statement said child sexual exploitation is alarming but not withstanding this policies and laws are been put in place as part of effort in curtailing the incident.
‘Children below the age of 18 should not be engage in sexual activities and that nobody should subject a child to that. The law also frowns on sexual exploitation such as child marriage and other forms of abuse. Sierra Leone is due for reporting on UN Convention on the right of the child, he said.’
He said as a ministry they are young but continue to do the work that they were created for.
In his statement the Deputy Commissioner, Children's Commission said children should be seen in this type of engagement adding that the report is about them.
The commissioner gave a vivid account of happenings in communities saying a child was gang rape in Kailahun and another was rape by a man old enough to be his father.
The police he said did not took the matter seriously and the commission had to intervene.
‘We had to engage the human right commission and the girl was brought to Freetown for treatment. There are series of challenges when it comes to sexual abuse of children and girls. Human capital development is also linked to human security. As a commission we continue to intervene in this direction but we need concerted effort in this direction, he said.’
The Deputy Commissioner said the issue calls for collective effort by increasing awareness on the subject matter.
Another aspect we are grappling with is the challenge regarding compromise and this is the more reason why we applaud YACAN for this report.
The Executive Director of YACAN, Hassan Fuad Kanu in his statement said the out of shadows index is the first global assessment of how countries are addressing child sexual exploitation.
He said the 2022 report benchmarks report how 60 countries are preventing and responding to child sexual exploitation and unlike any other research the OOSI shines a spotlight on the child sexual exploitation governance architecture- the national systems in place to address the complex issue of exploitation in its two core dimension prevention and response.
Making a presentation on the Global OOSI Report 2022, Rute Caldeira, Senior Strategic Advisor, OOSI said the report is a powerful tool for advocates to demand more from their governments.
Madam Caldeira said together, policy makers, civil society and the private sector must use the tool to find new solutions to halt the prevalence of Child sexual exploitation around the world and pressure governments to create change.
She said this edition of the index highlights which countries policies are working and which are not.
‘It also reveals that in the three years since the first version of the report, just a small number of countries have made substantial progress in combating child sexual exploitation, she said.’
