SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE: Anyone for a female condom?

Photo: Lourenço Silva/PlusNews

A health professional demonstrates how to use a female condom

S�O TOM�, – Women in S�o Tom� and Pr�ncipe have a new way to avoid unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV.

In late January, the initial phase of a government programme, coordinated by the Reproductive Health Programme (known by the Portuguese-language acronym PSR) and the National Programme for the Fight Against AIDS (PNLS), began distributing 3,500 free female condoms.

“This is a special moment for a lot of São Tomean women,” said Maria Tom�, minister of health and the family at a launch ceremony in S�o Tom�, the capital.

Elisabete Carvalho, who coordinates the Health Ministry’s Reproductive Health Programme, said the female condom could give women more control over their sexual health. “We want this to give them greater decision-making power, because they’re the most vulnerable.”

According to data from the Reproductive Health Programme, 12.1 percent of girls experience early pregnancy, while 1.5 percent of S�o Tom�’s approximately 150,000 people are living with HIV.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has donated a limited number of female condoms for the first phase of the campaign. “If there is a major demand, we’ll distribute more of them,” said PNLS Director Alzira do Ros�rio.

The condoms are available at hospitals and health centres all over S�o Tom� and Pr�ncipe, along with information pamphlets about the proper use of the contraceptive.

Radio and television stations have been broadcasting messages about the advantages of the female condom before and after popular Brazilian soap operas and the evening news, when audiences are at their peak.

Women speak

Tchai Martins, 26, was told about the new contraceptive method during a check-up at the Mother-Infant Centre in S�o Tom�, but after inspecting the prophylactic, which is 17cm long, she told IRIN/PlusNews: “If I were to change my method, this would be the last one I’d adopt.”

If I bring this home, my husband will think a million different things

Mena Xavier, 35 and a mother of three, also had doubts. “S�o Tomean men are very aggressive. If I bring this home, my husband will think a million different things,” she said. “I’ll even run the risk of him beating me, because he refuses to have sex with a condom.”

Around 30 women per day visit the centre for pre-natal and family planning consultations; in the first week of the initiative, nine of them decided to adopt the new contraceptive method.

Adelaide Mendonca, 23, was optimistic that female condoms had the potential to encourage greater autonomy. “Now women can act differently when their partners don’t have condoms,” she commented.

rg/am/ll/ks/he source.www.irinnews.org

KENYA: Changing lifestyles put indigenous communities at risk

Photo: www.ogiek.org

The Ogiek have battled eviction from their home in Mau Forest for decades

MAU FOREST, – One of East Africa’s last remaining hunter-gatherer communities, the Ogiek people, has largely remained separate from the rest of society, but NGOs warn that their ignorance and isolation from HIV/AIDS prevention efforts could heighten their vulnerability to the virus.

According to the Centre for Minority Rights and Development (CEMIRIDE), an NGO promoting the rights of indigenous peoples in Kenya, total ignorance of HIV among the Ogiek is not uncommon.

“There are no HIV campaigns at all directed at the Ogiek … the government do not even have statistics about the prevalence amongst them,” said Pattita Tiongoi, a programme officer with CEMIRIDE.

“The disease is penetrating through the Ogiek because of displacement, which has seen them mingle with their infected cosmopolitan neighbours like the Maasai and the Kalenjin.”

Napuoyo Moibei*, who thinks she is about 35 years old, was evicted from the Mau forest in Kenya’s Rift Valley Province several years ago and took up employment on a nearby wheat farm to make ends meet.

“The money was little, and with children and no husband, my option was to have sex with men from other communities who lived in the nearby trading centres,” she told IRIN/PlusNews.

Moibei’s husband passed away three years ago, and she recently discovered that she too was HIV-positive. “I had never heard about the disease called AIDS until I got sick and was almost dying,” she said. “The wife of my employer sympathised with me and took me to Nakuru for treatment.”

“I still do not know much, except that I have to go for drugs [life-prolonging antiretroviral medication] in Nakuru to live – that is what the nurse told me.”

I had never heard about the disease called AIDS until I got sick and was almost dying

With no knowledge about the virus, Moibei was unable to protect herself. “I do not know even how a condom looks like,” she said.

Experts say there is an urgent need to start HIV awareness campaigns targeting the Ogiek population of around 20,000, especially as more of them leave the forest for urban settlements and rural plantations, where they interact with higher-prevalence communities.

A study by the Minority Rights Group International and CEMIRIDE found that sex work was increasing as single-parent girls and women sought to fend for themselves, leading to the spread of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV.

“The initial lifestyle of being confined to the forest kind of shielded the Ogiek from HIV spread, but that lifestyle has been disrupted due to displacement,” CEMIRIDE’s Tiongoi said. “This is a small group of people that can easily be wiped out by [HIV] in just a few generations.”

According to Daniel Kobei, executive director of the Ogiek People’s Development Programme, HIV and other health issues have been sidelined as the government and NGOs focused on other Ogiek issues such as landlessness and poverty.

Kobei noted that very few Ogiek were literate, which meant they could not benefit from traditional HIV campaigns and would need specially created messages; health services would also have to be brought nearer the forest to reach the people still living there.

“Those who seek medical help have to come all the way to Nakuru, which is almost 40 kilometres away from where they are; it is a tiring walk for one who is living with the virus,” he said.

Most Ogiek still live in the Rift Valley, which has an HIV prevalence of seven percent, slightly lower than the national average of 7.4 percent.

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MOZAMBIQUE: Bridging the prevention gap

Photo: André Catueira/PlusNews

Under construction

CAIA,� – A new bridge is being built across the Zambezi River at Caia, a town in the central Mozambican province of Sofala; near the end of the workday three young men try to get the bridge construction workers to pay attention to their HIV and AIDS prevention messages.

“The workers’ routine could be risky and contribute towards the high HIV prevalence in Caia, which is why they need frequent lectures on AIDS,” said activist Alfredo Ranguisse. He and his colleagues belong to the Cupona (“to live” in the Ndau language) Association.

The association has been sub-contracted by the National Highway Administration to inform workers on the Zambezi River Bridge Construction Project about HIV prevention.

The bridge is 2.5km long and 16m wide and links Caia in Sofala Province with the town of Chimuara in Zambezia Province, on Mozambique’s main north-south highway. Government figures put HIV prevalence in both provinces at about 20 percent.

Prevention campaigns also target nearby communities, informing workers and the local population about the dangers of commercial sex, the importance of condom use, sexual health and voluntary testing.

Condom distribution is an integral part of the campaign: the construction workers are often far from their families and have cash at their disposal to spend on alcohol, while poverty in the surrounding communities often leads to sex work in response to ready cash.

The campaign has also focused on integrating the workers into the community, so that they learn local rules of conduct from neighbourhood leaders and do not live in camps, thus avoiding a situation where women and children are left behind when the project finishes and the men return to their home provinces or countries.

“We’ve carried out awareness-raising work about proper behaviour with the bridge workers, but because they’re away from home for so long they end up getting involved with local women,” said Xavier Muxenga, a community leader in Caia’s Chandimba neighbourhood.

Manuel was one such man. “A girl was given over to my care because I took her virginity. It’s my obligation to live with her as husband and wife, because her parents think that I might abandon her when my job is over,” he told IRIN/PlusNews.

A necessary warning

Prevention initiatives only began in 2006 after Save the Children, a UK-based NGO, warned in its report, Bridge across the Zambezi � What Needs to be done for Children? that if measures were not taken, a great number of children would end up dropping out of school to work on construction projects or in the surrounding areas, and become involved in high-risk activities such as sex work.

So far the impact of HIV has not been as devastating as would have been expected among bridge workers community

The study found that many workers were accused of sexually abusing minors; there were also cases of teenagers diagnosed with sexually transmitted diseases.

However, the report noted that it was possible to reduce the negative impacts of such projects on the community through prevention, protection, care and support initiatives, mainly aimed at children.

“The study helped us make sure we had tight control to avoid an increase in cases of sexually transmissible diseases, including HIV, during the construction of the bridge,” said Elias Paulo, director of the Zambezi and the River Bridge Construction Project.

Health services

Local health facilities were also reinforced with more professionals while construction was in progress, and two more ambulances were allocated to the Caia Rural Hospital.

A clinic specifically for workers was set up next to the construction site, offering counselling, voluntary testing and, if necessary, antiretroviral (ARV) drugs. The cost of these health services was carried by the construction company.

“Up to a point, the campaigns have led to healthy behaviour among the workers. So far, the impact of HIV has not been as devastating as would have been expected among bridge workers and the community,” said the Cupona Association’s Ranguisse.

An average of 150 to 180 workers visit the clinic every day. “A lot of them seek out the clinic’s services to become better informed about HIV, and do routine tests voluntarily,” said Nina Bondarenko, a Ukrainian physician who works at the clinic.

Twenty-five bridge workers are living with HIV, and five are on ARV treatment; all of them receive basic food baskets every month to help ensure a balanced diet.

The Zambezi River Bridge project employs 500 people directly and 2,000 indirectly. Construction of the bridge started in the 1970s but was interrupted by Mozambique’s 16-year civil war. Work on the bridge began again in March 2006 and is scheduled to be completed in June of 2009.

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Jane, “I told them I was HIV-positive … they raped me anyway”

Photo: Edgar Mwakaba/IRIN

“They didn’t believe me – they said I looked too healthy”

NAIROBI, Exactly one year ago, Kenya’s President Mwai Kibaki and his erstwhile rival for the presidency, Raila Odinga, signed an agreement that created a government of national unity, ending two months of election-related violence during which more than 1,000 people were killed. The effects of that violence are still being felt.

Jane, a businesswoman in Kibera, the largest slum in the capital, Nairobi, was gang-raped by five men two days after the election. Life was already extremely hard – her husband had thrown her and their children out of their home nine years ago when she tested positive for HIV. Jane told IRIN/PlusNews that when she sits by herself and recalls the rape, she feels “tortured in the mind”.

“It was about seven in the evening. The violence had already broken out and my neighbours had run away, but I was weak and had nowhere to run, so I thought if I locked up and stayed quiet, people would think the house was empty.

“The men came and I heard one of them saying, ‘I think there is someone in this house.’ They broke the door and came in. When I saw they were going to rape me, I told them I was HIV-positive.

“They didn’t believe me – they said I looked too healthy. I even showed them my ARVs [antiretrovirals] but they raped me anyway; there were five of them.

“They raped me in front of my two youngest children, aged three and seven … the kids cried out while it happened. My older children, 14 and 16 [years old], were at my sister’s place in Kayole [another informal settlement in Nairobi], so at least they did not see it. Afterwards the younger ones kept asking me what happened, but I just told them to forget it, I am okay.

“Immediately after the rape I went to the hospital and got some treatment. I prayed that I had not contracted any STIs [sexually transmitted infections], and thankfully I have not tested positive for any.

“I felt very bad abdominal pain for about one year after the rape … the men damaged me with their strength; I only started feeling normal again recently.

“I reported the case to the police and they said they would follow it, but they have not taken any action. I did not know the men who raped me, so it would be difficult to make a case, but I don’t think the police have done much. They said they would come to my house to investigate but they never did. It was no use going to them.

“I am a member of a support group for women living with HIV and they have helped me by listening to me when I want to talk about the rape. My counsellor has also been very helpful.

“I am trying to carry on with life, selling smoked fish and working part-time as a home carer, but it’s hard. Food and everything is so expensive, and yet I have to make sure my kids go to school.

“I was angry with the men who raped me – they wanted to show me that they were tough, and now they may be HIV-positive. I was angry with the police as well. Now I have learned to forget about all of them, but sometimes, when I sit alone, I am still tortured in the mind.”

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MALAWI: Tensions high as ex-president arrested

Photo: IRIN

Fears over this year’s election

LILONGWE,� – The arrest of Malawi’s ex-president, Bakili Muluzi, by the country’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) for allegedly stealing US$11 million in donor money has turned up the political heat ahead of general elections due in May.

Muluzi, who wants to run in the 19 May poll, was charged on 87 counts for allegedly diverting money meant for development projects into his private account. He has denied any wrongdoing and is currently on bail.

His United Democratic Front (UDF) party accused the government of launching a witch hunt, and thousands of his supporters gathered outside the ACB offices, and later at the Magistrate’s court in Blantyre, Malawi’s commercial capital, on 26 February amid a heavy police presence.

Muluzi’s lawyer, Fahad Assani, said the ex-president was essentially facing four charges. “There are 87 charges which they have pressed on Muluzi, which can be divided into four. One charge is multiplied four times, using different language.”

Muluzi is being quizzed on how he constructed a plush office complex in Blantyre, and how he could afford 106 vehicles and UDF campaign material for the 2004 general election, which ushered President Bingu wa Mutharika into office. Muluzi has insisted that he took a bank loan to cover the purchases.

AU delegation appeals for calm

Political tensions are already high in Malawi, with the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) arguing that Muluzi’s comeback bid is destabilising the country. Senior UDF official Humphrey Mvula said the DPP “want to keep [Muluzi] busy with cases – it’s a typical way of running away from competition.”

Muluzi, who ruled Malawi for 10 years before picking Mutharika from political obscurity to succeed him, is awaiting a court ruling on whether he can contest the election. The constitution bars a president from seeking more than two consecutive terms, but is silent on whether Muluzi’s five-year break allows him to stand.

Former Ghanaian president John Kufuor and former Mozambican president Joachim Chissano were recently in the country as part of an African Union mission to help ease the political tensions.

At a press conference in the capital, Lilongwe, this week, Chissano said: “President Bingu wa Mutharika assured the high-level delegation that he was open to dialogue with all stakeholders to avert violence and to uphold peace and democracy in Malawi. On his part, the former president, Bakili Muluzi, agreed to participate in such dialogue.”

With the country waiting to hear from the electoral authorities as to the list of presidential nominees, Chissano added: “The high-level delegation calls upon all political parties and the public to remain calm and peaceful until such a decision is made by the Malawi Electoral Commission.”

Mutharika came to power on the UDF’s ticket but dumped the party in 2005 and formed the DPP. Since then, he and Muluzi have been bitter rivals in a country with a history of political violence.

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President Barrack Obama 1st Floor, West Wing 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC 20500

Reg: Solar Energy Dear Sir, What counts for more, experience or book learning? I say experience is a better and more accurate, but less forgiving teacher. I would like to share my personal experience utilizing solar energy with you. When I became disabled, unable to afford our mortgage in the Santa Cruz Mountains my husband and I decided to sell our house and develop a piece of property I bought in 1991.

This property is along an incorporated highway, FH119 and a short distance, less than a mile for electricity. Our first option was to bring in PG&E but after a $1000 deposit and several trips to my house, PG&E decided they didn’t have a check, wanted $5000 in certified funds to begin engineering and oh by they way, they filed for bankruptcy. They originally quoted me $35,000 for a line extension of one mile but suddenly it went up to $100,000. I had a preapproved construction loan but no longer had the equity to pay for the cost of electricity. With no alternatives, I invested in a solar energy (photovoltaic) system. I bought sixteen batteries, four 165 watt panels and one inverter. That was a start.

Panels at that time were running about $800 each, produced 160 watts per panel and were sold in pairs. My last two panels produced 170 watts per panel. By the time they are installed they average about $1000 per panel to produce 340 watts of power. That will run seventeen compact florescent light bulbs or a 185 watt TV and seven light bulbs. It will not run a refrigerator, forced heating or air conditioner. The refrigerator starting or running the microwave will trigger the generator to start. I have six panels. When I wrote Exposed; the Solar Energy Con, I documented the costs and I had an aerospace engineer, a former coworker and adversary tell me I was all wrong. He said solar panels were cheap and only cost $3 to $4 per watt. I pointed out that was still $3000 to $4000 per kilowatt. Compare that to PG&E’s price of $0.11 to $0.35 per kilowatt. Determined to prove I was wrong he did some research. He came back with the statement that in order to run an air conditioning I would need two acres of panels and a ton of batteries. His conclusion was that I had simply developed too soon. So what has it cost me? Everything. My relationship with my husband. He has Parkinson’s, got sick after we moved here and I have to maintain the system. He also doesn’t understand the system.

It takes an engineer to understand the intricacies of balancing an inverter, charge controller and generator. The only thing my husband can do is check the water on the battery. I change the oil, the spark plugs and monitor the system. Generators break down. I have spent in excess of $30,000 buying, repairing and replacing generators. Batteries have limited life span. My first set of batteries died in five years my second started dying after two. At a cost of over $2000. My propane usage, with solar panels is around 200 gallons per month. Propane is down to $2.13. I have had propane bills of $746 for one month. I have gone through my 401K, my inheritance and my disability settlement as well as my husband’s VA back pay for my home and just to maintain electricity. On SSDI we went bankrupt. We tried to sell but because we are off the grid (on solar energy) our house was worth 50% of what we had invested and people who were interested couldn’t get financing. Not because of the mortgage meltdown but because it is almost impossible to find a lender who will finance a solar energy (non-conforming) structure. My three bedroom Y2K 1664 square foot manufactured home was worth less than a one bedroom cabin due to Mark-to-Market appraisal. On June 26th, 2006 at 7:00 AM I lost the most important part of my life when my five year old dog, my Baby, my BooBoo died due to water intoxication because I was unable to run my air conditioner and keep him cool. At that point I would have sold my soul to the devil to get electricity. Determined not to lose another dog or much worse my husband I became determined to find a way to get electricity. I had my house appraised with electricity for a construction loan. Because of the bankruptcy I could not qualify for a conventional loan so I went to a mortgage broker.

After months of negotiating and his assurances he could get me a loan, he opened an escrow account then told me the interest would be 11.99% and my payments would go up $1000 per month. I told him he was a shylock and told him we could not afford that type of payment. He put a lot of pressure on me but I knew that if I would have taken his loan I would have been in foreclosure within two or three months. I had the common sense to know what I could or could not afford and other borrowers should too. I began looking into grants to bring electricity to my neighborhood. It took about a year but I was awarded a USFDA/RUS High Energy Cost Grant. The first individual ever to be awarded this grant my application came in at number 11 out of 75. That was in April 2008. I am still waiting for the money. The delay has been caused by the California Red Legged Frog. After a $4500 frog assessment the USFWS decided they wanted a survey. Why? Because the biologist didn’t address the location where they have been found, miles away, “We (the USFWS) must assume they are there.” We appealed and offered mitigation that will allow us to start after April 1, 2009. The CRLF is not on the endangered species list as endangered but merely as possibly threatened. Now let me tell you about the CRLF. The frog is supposed to be the frog Mark Twain (a fiction writer) wrote about in The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. According to newspaper accounts (at that time) the frogs made their way onto the menus of San Francisco restaurants. This means that the Calaveras County frogs could not have been California Red Legged Frogs.

The CRLF is only two to five inches long, lives up to ten years and produces 2000 to 6000 eggs. You only eat the legs of frogs. In other words, diners would have been eating toothpicks. So why is the CRLF considered to be the infamous Calaveras County Jumping Frog? A recent article in the Calaveras Enterprise says the following; “Basey came under fire from several people for his claim that the red-legged frog was the famed jumping frog from Mark Twain’s “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” Basey set the record straight after the meeting. “In the 1970s, it dawned on me that if there was any truth to the Mark Twain story the winner of that contest would have to be the red-legged frog because bullfrogs did not exist in California until 1922,” he said. “I was making presentations across the state at that time, and said the jumping frog was a red-legged frog to make my speeches more interesting.”" In other words Basey wanted to make his speeches interesting. It has nothing to do with the frog itself. My mail carrier is a tribal elder who told me the tribe has caught people putting CRLF onto the reservation.

To try to claim the tribal land. California is spending millions of tax dollars on California Red Legged Frog surveys in more than 1000 lakes and streams because over 100 years ago when they first started stocking the lakes and streams, they did not perform an environmental impact study. This will collapse the industry as well as sport fishing and tourism. Environmental impact studies only cause delays to development and costs jobs. It does nothing to protect the CRLF. We spend millions on the Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse, reclaiming rice fields to rebuild snake mounds and even protect the Kangaroo Jumping Mouse, a rodent which is known to carry the Hanta virus. My sister in Colorado lost a friend because of the Hanta virus. Tell her about protecting mice. I say we should spend tax dollars eradicating rodents not protecting them. Should we put the mosquito on the endangered species list because it is the mainstay of the CRLF’s diet?

In California we can’t build any new hydroelectric facilities because the environmentalists in Congress tell us to conserve because they don’t want to displace deer habitat. Hydroelectric is the cleanest energy. You can only conserve so much with a growing population and with the drought we face water shortages that will impact the farmers. So instead of protecting people and jobs we protect the deer. No American should die because they can’t obtain water or electricity.

In California it is illegal not to have electricity because as a recent news report stated people use more dangerous things like generators. So I now find out after 8 � years my house is illegal. Even though I was given building permits. Getting back to solar energy. It doesn’t work. It is not cost effective and contaminates the environment. Solar panels degrade after as little as six years. Where are we going to recycle these panels? How many megawatts does it take to manufacture a product that over its lifetime will only produce kilowatts? It doesn’t make economic sense to manufacture something that takes more to manufacture than it can produce. Conserve the energy instead. The batteries required for these systems often end up thrown into creeks by the same environmentalists that are promoting this form of energy. A recent cleanup netted twenty-four discarded batteries. Rain running off solar panels causes erosion and how much erosion do you think would be caused by cutting down two acres of trees? Solar panels break loose from mountings and have gone sailing in high winds. This is a fire hazard when broken hot wires touch fallen leaves. And these panels will be hot no matter where they land. The average consumer has little understanding of electric applications.

My IQ is in the 85th percentile (85% above normal) and it has been difficult for me to understand the complexity and the dynamics of a photovoltaic system. Electric generation is best left to the experts. It is too dangerous for the ignorant. Before promoting solar energy you should live it. I have lived this way for 8 � years. Don’t talk to me about sacrifice. You have no understanding of sacrifice. You couldn’t even go without electricity for one day when the electricity went out in Hawaii. Before you talk about what you don’t know try living it for a while. Recent news reports say that 650 world renowned climatologists say global temperatures have actually decreased over the last three years and there is no such thing as global warming, but you refuse to believe the experts deferring instead to people like Al Gore who benefit economically from promoting the idea of global warming. Cap and Trade will put the final nail in the coffin which has become the American Economy. Card Check will take away the most sacred of our voting rights and hurt job creation.

Just look at Detroit to see how good unions are and how much they help the economy. Any idiot can see this. My sister is a Realtor who is raising her two grandchildren. She can’t sell anything because of the economy. My best friend is a broker. He has gone bankrupt. Taxpayers waste millions annually on idiotic protectionist environmental policies. No frog, snake, rodent or bear is worth one human life. ANWR is a useless piece of frozen tundra that the polar bear doesn’t even want. Yet the eco-nuts want to protect ANWR for the Polar Bear. We need to drill ANWR and offshore and develop nuclear power and become energy independent.

It won’t hurt the environment and will help the economy. When Congress said they were going to allow the moratorium on offshore drilling stocks went up. When it looked like you would be elected the Dow started on it’s downhill slide. It is because of the policies you put in place. Every time you speak, Wall Street listens and the Dow drops. But you don’t seem concerned about that. When are you going to wake up and realize oil prices and bad environmental policies ignited this economic wildfire and urinating on it won’t stop it? A pig by any other name is still pork. Call it what you like but Americans can see the so called stimulus package is filled with pork as is the Omnibus package and the budget.

We are not stupid. I see more methane come out of Congress spewed forth from voracious caverns called Pelosi and Reed than comes out of the worst coal burning power plant. It’s time for a pig roast. You spent millions on a coronation including millions of tax dollars on security and cleanup. You serve $80 per pound beef at your taxpayer subsidized Super Bowl party while American’s can’t afford hamburger or milk.

You party and entertain and fly all over the nation on the taxpayer’s back. Have you ever heard of teleconferencing? Try living by example instead of putting out the rhetoric you are asking the American’s to live by. Americans are pissed off.

By: Tiffany Montano Recovering Environmentalist 11997 Oro Quincy Hwy. Berry Creek, CA 95916-9780 530-589-4667 Exposed; the Solar Energy Con Environmentalism and Government run Amuck Chue’s Trip Squirrelly Squirrel Fights Back

SIERRA LEONE: Forced marriage conviction a first

Photo: Special Court/IRIN

RUF interim leader Issa Hassan Sesay was charged for war crimes by the Special Court on 25 February 2009

FREETOWN, – The Special Court for Sierra Leone on 25 February convicted three former leaders of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), marking the first time a court has convicted on the charge of forced marriage.�

After a four-year trial, the tribunal found former RUF interim leader Issa Hassan Sesay and RUF commander Morris Kallon guilty on 16 of 18 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and former RUF chief of security Augustine Gbao on 14 counts.

All three men were convicted of forcing marriage on women. The court also set a precedent by charging all three for war crimes for targeting humanitarian and peacekeepers in direct attacks.

The prosecution argued that forced marriage should be considered a crime against humanity distinct from other forms of sexual violence such as sexual slavery because of the length of the association and its domestic nature.

Our position is that sexual slavery is a horrendous crime, lead prosecutor Stephen Rapp told journalists after the verdicts. Victims would be held for days or weeks and forced into sex acts. Forced marriage is all of that plus essentially being consorts to the rebels.

The result, he said, is stigma, with the women seen as responsible for the crimes of their husbands.

Rapp said the decisions marked a legal turning point. We have essentially filled a gap in international humanitarian law. The decision will become a precedent for other cases in the International Criminal Court, and possibly act as a deterrent in future conflicts.

Child soldiersKallon and Sesay were found guilty of the deliberate and widespread conscription of child soldiers as young as eight years old; rebels used children in a number of ways, including: to support soldiers in a campaign of systematic amputation and mutilation, to spy, perform domestic labour, take part in armed patrols, or serve as bodyguards for RUF commanders.

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Gbao was acquitted on this charge. I think it’s likely that we will be appealing the majority if not all of the guilty verdicts, John Cammegh, lead counsel for Gbao, told journalists.

Sentences are expected in March 2009, followed by an appeals process, which will mark the end of the Court’s work in Freetown. The Special Court’s trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone’s war�is ongoing at The Hague.

The Special Court was established jointly by the United Nations and the Government of Sierra Leone to try those deemed most responsible for atrocities committed during the 11-year civil war that killed up to 50,000 people.

Muted reactionLocal reaction to the verdict was muted. In the capital Freetown people went about their daily business, selling goods along bustling downtown streets, largely oblivious.

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Unisa Sesay, in his 20s, who during the war was caught in an ambush at Tombo just outside of Freetown, doubted the court’s impact on Sierra Leoneans’ daily lives.

“Jailing them will not bring back lives and property. Look at all of us. We are in the street. We have no jobs. And they are spending money on the Special Court?

Patrick Fatoma, outreach coordinator for the Special Court, is familiar with such reactions.

That’s not going to end, he told IRIN. This is a very poor country, and if people hear about money being spent by the court, even if you’re spending [it] for a good cause, they will think you should spend it on people for food.

Fatoma tries to explain to people like Sesay that the money used to run the Special Court has been donated specifically for that purpose. If it is not used for the court, they [the donor countries] take their money back.

The Special Court received support from over 40 states,�with Canada, the Netherlands, Nigeria, the United Kingdom and the United States providing the majority of the funds.

Fatoma said perceptions have shifted slightly. The question [people] ask us now in our outreach events is not, Why are you spending so much money on the Special Court and not giving it to the amputees and war victims? The question is now, Why are you not trying more people?

Some Sierra Leoneans told IRIN that with the RUF verdict they felt they could finally move on. I like the Special Court, said Alpha Tommy Conteh, whose wife was killed by a stray bullet in a January 1999 rebel attack on Freetown. It is necessary. If you don’t [have a] Special Court to bring punishment, other men will just bring war again.

mb/bh/aj/np source.www.irinnews.org

SIERRA LEONE: Marion Kargbo, “My mother gave me to them”

Photo: Bryna Hallam/IRIN

Marion Kargbo was 18 when she was forced to marry a rebel soldier

FREETOWN,� – Marion Kargbo was 18 when she was forced to marry a soldier of the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in January 1999, in the middle of Sierra Leone’s civil war. Ten years later, RUF leaders have been found guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including forced marriage – the first time a court has treated the offence as a crime separate from sexual slavery.

According to local NGOs many women and girls associated with the rebel forces, especially those not in fighting roles, were excluded from the official disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration process whereby ex-combatants received money and training to help them re-enter civilian life.

On January 6, 1999, the rebels came to [the capital] Freetown. …The rebels came to burn the [family] house and capture us. Before they set the house on fire, they demanded my mother hand over one of her children. If she didn’t, they would kill us all.
My mother gave me to them.

The rebels took me to the provinces. Makeni [in the north]. I was raped on the way to Makeni. I was unable to walk [afterwards], I was bleeding. Seven men raped me. I was a virgin.

In Makeni I was forced to become the bush wife of CO Papa, the second commander of Scorpion Group.

I lived with him for seven months.� I was forced to have sex, but also to collect firewood and water. During that time CO Papa wouldn’t let the other men touch me.

I escaped. The rebels were killing too many people. I was scared and had to escape. I was pregnant with CO Papa’s child.

A Sierra Leone army soldier escaped with me from Makeni to Madina [farther north]. The place was surrounded with RUF again [so] I left the soldier and walked to Kambia [in the west]. In Kambia I was raped again by an RUF rebel. I was still pregnant. I started bleeding. He beat me with his gun.

When I returned to Freetown, my family refused me because they say I am part of the RUF now.

A friend told me about the Forum for African Women Educationalists [FAWE, an NGO that helped victims of the war].

FAWE gave me medicines and skills training in catering. They had to convince [my family] to take me back. I was staying with [my family] but they were not treating me nice, so I left.

I stay just with my daughter. She is nine now. I am doing catering to support us. The assistance from FAWE is the only help I have received.

I have registered in the reparations programme but they did not explain to us what the reparations will be or what the criteria are. I hope my child will be educated [through the programme].

“I was a witness at the [RUF] trial [but] I won’t feel anything.

My life is better now, far different. I am able to support my child.”

bh/aj/np source.www.irinnews.org