Sierra Leone: My President, Please Protect Children's Right to Safe and Meaningful Participation in Sierra Leone

opinion

Over 16 years ago, I led a group of children to the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children's Affairs to ask for their support in setting up what we called then our own "children's parliament". We wanted a national children's organisation to give a strong and bold voice to children across the country. Besides, we reasoned that if children could be used as destructive agents of war, we could also be constructive agents for our country's peace and prosperity and exercising our rights was the surest way to build for the future. Luckily, the leadership of the Ministry at the time listened and organised the first workshop with the support of UNICEF and Plan Sierra Leone to begin the process of setting up what became known as the Children's Forum Network. My peers- over fifty children from all over the country and representing every possible category- overwhelmingly voted for me as the Founding President.

Our group set out to "lay a solid foundation" (that's the organisation's motto that we agreed on) for children's rights and started creating a culture of meaningful and safe children's participation on pretty much every critical issue affecting them at all levels of our society. We set up branches in schools, zones and communities, organised ourselves into regions and decentralised our structures. We led or inspired the creation of new structures like the National Commission for War Affected Children and the United Nations gave us the first of its kind national mouthpiece to elevate our voices in the peace building process -the Voice of Children Radio - which I was honored to be the leader of (as the Junior Executive Producer). We went around the country advocating for children's rights and sensitising other children and adults alike about the importance of putting children's rights at the heart of the post war country that we were reconstructing. We became the first group of children anywhere to be invited to not only set the parameters for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but to submit an official thematic testimony and eventually prepare a groundbreaking child-friendly version of the commission's final report. We counselled and welcomed children who were former combatants and helped them to reintegrate into communities and we encouraged lawmakers and political parties to sign on to children's manifestoes committing to promote children's rights and welfare once in office. Those efforts, among others led to the passage of the National Child Rights Act.

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