With no prospects, youths are turning to crime and violence

A new generation of Sierra Leoneans are eager to put fighting and war behind them but the lack of jobs and the legacy of their own messed up education, are driving many to crime and violence that could destroy peace. “Life is very rough because we are even suffering for food. I know many friends, they were jailed because they sell ‘brown-brown’ – drugs you inhale,” explained 23 year old Saliou Kamara, referring to the cannabis that his friends trade. “They say they have no regrets - that is how they make a living. But I don’t want that,” said Kamara who instead ekes out a living selling legal drugs –- painkillers -- which he takes from the packet and sells one by one on the streets of Makeni, northeastern Sierra Leone. Normal life was brought to an abrupt halt for Kamara when, seven years ago, he saw his father stabbed to death by rebels that attacked his village Massampoi, 35 km away. “The war was a disaster. My father was killed. 23 stabs. His property was destroyed. My mother also died soon after. I left school because I could not pay the 100,000 Leones [US $33] school fees or mend the properties,” Kamara said. Orphaned, Kamara fled the village and like many young men and women his age, headed for the nearest town in search of work. But unemployment is raging at 60 percent and there are plenty of people better educated than Kamara, who studied until a respectable 16 years of age, who can’t find work. While Kamara has found a niche for himself in the informal sector, many others his age are making ends meet through crime. “If you look at the age bracket of those who commit crimes such as burglaries, theft, drug offences, or other forms of organised crimes, they are mainly youths between the ages of 18 and 30-something,” said Amara Sesay, Deputy Director of the Criminal Investigations Department. Drugged up rebels, including thousands of children, fought an eleven year guerrilla war from 1991 to 2002 in the towns and villages nestled in the lush countryside of Sierra Leone, where they hacked off civilian’s limbs as part of their terror campaign. Poverty and a lack of education and work prospects, created a disillusioned youth that Foday Sankoh, leader and founding father of the Revolutionary United Front rebels, harnessed to mould an angry fighting force. “By the eve of the fighting most urban youth had lost all hope. They had sunk into an abyss of unemployment and disillusionment. In this state, fighting the war seemed like a viable alternative,” stated Sierra Leone’s post conflict Truth and Reconciliation Commission in a 2004 report. Most of the fighters, rebel or pro-government, were aged between 18 and 35 years old according to the Commission. And over 6,000 fighters disarmed by the UN, were children. A return to violence? Fourteen years on and Sierra Leoneans have an elected civilian government which with the help of a 17,500 UN peacekeeping force, has regained full control of the country after more than 70,000 fighters were disarmed and demobilised. At a cost of millions of US dollars, those former fighters have been put through educational or vocational training programmes. From soap making to carpentry, from school exams to driving licences, most of the former combatants had the opportunity to acquire something. Joseph Lebbie, 28, was forced by village elders to fight for a local militia set up to protect his village in southern Sierra Leone. He never liked fighting, he explained, and was happy to hand in his weapon and train as a mechanic under the UN disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration programme. “But at the end of my training as a mechanic, I was handed a carpentry kit,” said Lebbie, who passed it on to a carpenter friend.

Youths idle away hours on street corners

Training courses, organised by NGOs, typically ran for six months. Not long enough to learn anything much, complained Lebbie, who used an old shoelace to hold up his oil stained jeans. “I didn’t learn enough on the course to get a job and so I’m still working as an apprentice learning how to fix cars. But it’s not a formal set up. My boss doesn’t pay me. I rely on my sister, who feeds me,” he said. One of the main problems for work hungry young men like Lebbie, is that there aren’t enough companies setting up in Sierra Leone creating job opportunities. “One of the most important challenges at this stage is to create the conditions for the private sector to feel confident in investing. The private sector is timid and the impediments to investing, many,” said Victor d’Angelo resident representative for the UN’s Development Programme (UNDP). In the capital Freetown, money conscious Sierra Leoneans try to haggle for a bargain in the market in an area called “Belgium”, known for the vast array of second hand goods on sale there. Youths, with nothing to do to occupy their days, are also drawn to Belgium to hang out with friends or perhaps do a bit of petty trading if they’re lucky. “We are fed up, we suffer too much in this country! We have no meals. Our houses have been broken, and we sleep on tables here in the market,” complained 29 year old Ibrahim Bombaya, barely able to contain his anger. “The politicians, they promise too much. We see nothing! We want change!” piped up a friend, 22 year old Mohamed N’jay, as a crowd of young men gathered in the hot midday day sun to join the fiery debate. The government and UNDP, together with the World Bank and other NGOs, have launched a ‘Youth Employment and Job Creation’ project to address such complaints by finding tens of thousands of sustainable jobs for young people by working with youth groups. In Makeni, in northeastern Sierra Leone, youth leader Ibrahim Daramy, is pessimistic about the success of such projects. To his mind, NGOs are imposing too many ideas on youths instead of working with them as equal partners.

A generation of youths didn't go to school

“I’ve heard Berewa [the vice-president], Victor d’Angelo, the EU and other donors, say that young people are an emergency issue, but as a young man living in this country, I do not see their words reflected in reality,” said Daramy. And the consequences of their exclusion could be dire, warns Daramy: “You see what happened in Bo with Charles Margai,” he said. Politician Charles Francis Margai, is the leader of a breakaway group from the ruling party who has developed a strong support base among young Sierra Leoneans. At the beginning of December, Margai was arrested in the second city, Bo, after holding a meeting that had not been authorised by the government. His arrest sparked gangs of youths to riot in Bo and in Freetown police fired tear gas to prevent angry mobs from storming government buildings. “They [donors] cannot just sit in Freetown with their computers then come here in their vehicles and force us to implement projects that I am not sure of the success,” complained Daramy, as he sat in the shade by the side of the road. “But I have to accept, because I am too poor to say no.”