By Simitie Lavaly | Executive Director
With your ongoing support and encouragement, AdvocAid’s legal team and our social worker have continued providing legal advice, representation and welfare support to women in detention across Sierra Leone during the Ebola epidemic affecting the country. From August 2013 to date we have provided 943 girls and women with legal advice and assistance, and provided 150 of these women with legal representation in court. 462 women and 56 children under 2 years of age have benefitted from welfare support donations.
Katumu is our paralegal working in Kenema, a regional headquarter town in the South Eastern part of Sierra Leone and the second epicentre for the Ebola epidemic. On a weekly basis she visits the two police stations, two Magistrates Courts, the High Court and the Kenema Female prison found in Kenema. After the State of Emergency on Public Health grounds was declared by Sierra Leone’s President in July 2014, Kenema District was placed under quarantine for 90 days; to date the quarantine is still in place. Initially all legal work was halted as everyone stayed at home, but soon after Courts resumed sessions and Katumu continued her monitoring and legal aid work. Amidst the rising number of people being infected with the virus Katumu bravely continued her work. The financial support we received has enabled us to give her a risk allowance so she can safely continue her monitoring visits and thereby provide vital legal advice and assistance support to women who have been arrested and charged to court during this State of Emergency. The risk allowance enables Katumu to buy protective gear for herself, such as plastic gloves, as well as take private rather than public transport, given that many sick people are taken to hospital in public transport. Katumu has personally assisted 216 women since August 2013 in their legal matters.
This November, Katumu was able to assist in securing the release of Barbara (not her real name) from prison after she had spent 5 years and 8 months there. Barbara, a lady in her late thirties, was arrested and charged with murder in February 2009 after she accidentally caused the death of a young boy whilst she was working in her father’s rice farm. Her trial in the Magistrates Court and later in the High court was delayed because no postmortem report was produced for the court. Katumu supported Barbara throughout the court process and advocated, alongside our assigned Duty Counsel, for the charge to be reduced to manslaughter as Barbara had never intended to cause the boy’s death. Eventually, Barbara pleaded guilty to the manslaughter charge and she was sentenced to 7 years imprisonment. She has now served her time in prison and is looking forward to living her life again. Your support has enabled Katumu to give her a transport fare to return back to her community and a little start up grant.
As Christmas is fast approaching, we ask that you continue to support our project and also inform your friends and colleagues about the work we are doing during this epidemic. Your ongoing support will enable us to continue giving the risk allowance and thereby allow Katumu to work effectively to ensure many of the women will be home for Christmas or those who remain incarcerated receive some Christmas cheer upon receipt of a Christmas welfare hamper.
For more insight about our work, please see a documentary done by IRIN concerning women’s experiences of the criminal justice system in Sierra Leone. This can viewed at http://www.irinnews.org/report/100211/new-film-sierra-leone-apos-s-women-behind-bars and an article in the Guardian - http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/oct/15/ebola-sierra-leone-pariah-nation.
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