Survivor Stories |
Mariatu kamara
At age 12, she was abducted by rebels while working on her family’s farm. They cut both her hands off, leaving her to die as she passed out from the pain. She woke up in a burning village full of bodies. Before that, she had been forced into marriage with an older man who raped her and later was killed in front of her. She became pregnant with his child, despite not even knowing how babies were made. After giving birth to him, she was forced to beg on the street, earning $2 day if she was lucky. When her son was 10 months old, he died of malnutrition. A Canadian man sponsored her to come to Canada, where she lived with a Sierra Leonean family. She worked hard at her education, and eventually wrote a book called A Bite Of Mango. She still lives in Canada and is now their UNICEF Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict.
Laura conteh
When she was 12, rebels came and invaded her village. She didn’t understand what was happening, but followed her sister into a bush where she was surrounded by rebels. She was taken by them, and they forced her to cook and clean for them as well as repeatedly raping her, and forcing her into marriage. As a result of that, she became pregnant with a son. She is now 27 and her son is 13.
Satta joe
She had just given birth to her second child when rebels invaded her village. Among the rebels was Satta’s relative who had previously tried to rape her. As soon as he saw her, he and his fellow rebels gang-raped her while her 7 year old son watched. Once they noticed him, they killed him too. Her husband, who had walked in on them raping her, was scared and ran away, leaving her. But a group of rebels found him as he was trying to escape the village and shot him too.
Theresa
Theresa was only a toddler when Sierra Leone was hit by the civil war. When she was a small child, she lost her parents on the way to safety in neighboring Guinea, and was never able to find them again. She lived as an orphan at refugee camps, and at a young age became a prostitute to make ends meet. As a result of her work, she became pregnant at 14. She is now 16 and her son is 2, and she often struggles to feed them both. She often feels hopeless and that her life isn’t worth living.