By Rebecca Wood | Executive Director
This October, after three years of imprisonment, the doors of the Kenema Female Correctional Center finally closed behind Aisha*’s back: she was free to go. However, her destination in rural Kailahun was more than 30 miles away and she had neither money, nor a family member to pick her up.
Rewind to three years ago and Aisha was a successful businesswoman, a traditional healer and reference point for her community. Women would often turn to her for help, as she was believed to heal irregularities in the menstrual cycle. One afternoon, Aisha mixed up a traditional treatment for a woman who asked her for help. Aisha didn’t know that this woman was pregnant and, a few hours later, the client was bleeding heavily – the woman died that same evening. Angry and perplexed, the community members accused Aisha of murder and dragged her to the Kenema police station, leaving her three children and elderly mother behind, for whom she was the only breadwinner.
It was in the Kenema police station that AdvocAid’s paralegal first met Aisha and took up her case, giving her advice and informing her of her rights. As a next step, since Aisha did not have any funds to hire a lawyer, our Duty Counsel represented her in court, helping her explain to the judge that she did not commit the offence intentionally. With this help, Aisha was charged with manslaughter – not murder - and was sentenced for 10 years, five of which she was to serve in prison and the rest suspended. During her time in prison, AdvocAid’s social worker continued to support Aisha with psycho-social consultations and access to skills trainings. Thanks to these trainings, Aisha learned to design bed sheets and head covers and started making craft beads. She hoped that once released, she would be able to use these skills to support her family.
On Aisha’s release, she was desperate to go home to see her children again and start a new life. Thanks to our 'Go Bifo' (meaning ‘Moving Forward’ in Krio) post-prison support program, we were able to give Aisha the modest amount of 70,000 leones (around $8.50) so she could make the journey to her home. Presently, we do not have sufficient funds to provide Aisha with a start-up stipend - we hope that her dreams of establishing her business will come true, and that she will be able to fulfill her obligations as the breadwinner of the family.
Women who have been imprisoned in Sierra Leone are released to a reality where they have lost all of their possessions and income, driving them deeper into poverty and making them vulnerable to coming into conflict with the law once more. Yet in Sierra Leone, there is hardly any rehabilitation programmes or post-prison support to enable women to reintegrate into their communities.
This is why we need your support. Thanks to you, our donors, Aisha has been able to return home. However, we want to do more for Aisha and other women like her, so they can rebuild their lives after prison and start afresh.
Please share this report with your contacts, and donate to our cause so that we could break the cycle of violence and provide more support to vulnerable women like Aisha. We encourage you to sign up to our newsletter, via our website, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to get the latest news about AdvocAid’s work.
*Names have been changed to protect the individuals’ identities
By Simitie Lavaly | Project Leader
By Leanne Greenfield | Development Intern
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