Government presents child rights report

The Committee on the Rights of the Child on Thursday urged Sierra Leone’s government to harmonise its legislation to bring it in line with the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and to do more to reduce discrimination against women and girls.

All 191 states party to the CRC are required to submit periodic reports to the Committee on their efforts to implement the treaty. In the first report it has ever presented to the Committee, Sierra Leone’s government said the war had displaced some 690,000 children under the age of 18. Of these, 145,000 were of primary school age and almost 70 percent of them were outside the school system.

Substance abuse had increased dramatically due to the war, according to the report, which said abducted children were encouraged to take drugs and forced to fight and perform manual labour. The government has now taken measures against people growing cannabis and making it available to children, it said.

According to UNICEF, about 5,000 children, some of them as young as five years old, are estimated to have been involved in the conflict in Sierra Leone. Fifty-five percent of the 4,000 children reported missing are documented cases of abduction. In 1999, only 801 children were released by rebel forces, according to UNICEF.