[child-rights] Special Representative for children and armed conflict to visit Sierra Leone

UNITED NATIONS
Press Release
20 February 2003

NEW YORK, 19 February (OSRSG) –- Under-Secretary-General Olara A. Otunnu, 
the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed 
Conflict, will visit Sierra Leone from 22 to 28 February to assess the 
status of war-affected children in the post-conflict, peace-building phase. 
The visit is a follow-up to previous missions to the country undertaken by 
the Special Representative in 1999 and 2000, during which he proposed an 
action plan for the nation's children.

Since the Sierra Leonean conflict ended in January 2002, considerable 
progress has been made in advancing the protection and rehabilitation of 
children. An ambitious programme for the demobilization and reintegration 
of some 7,000 child ex-combatants has made significant progress, with some 
97 per cent of them reunified to date with their families and communities. 
Child protection has been well integrated into the United Nations Mission 
in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL), with the presence on staff of child protection 
advisers and ongoing training of peacekeepers in child rights and child 
protection.

Two initiatives that were proposed by Under-Secretary-General Otunnu in 
1999 in his "Agenda for Action for the Children of Sierra Leone" –- the 
National Commission for War-Affected Children and the Voice of Children, a 
radio station run by and for the children –- will be inaugurated during his 
visit.

Children and the youth were severely affected by the decade-long conflict 
in Sierra Leone. They were forcibly conscripted by fighting forces, 
displaced internally or into neighbouring countries as refugees, and were 
deprived of education and basic health care. They were subject to sexual 
exploitation and abuse, and were also used as forced labour in the 
extraction of natural resources. Some of these problems persist, while new 
challenges, such as an upsurge in the phenomenon of "street children", have 
arisen.

During his stay, Mr. Otunnu will address these and other challenges for 
Sierra Leone's children in meetings with President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and 
government ministers and officials, senior UNAMSIL staff and the United 
Nations country team, child protection agencies, children and civil society 
representatives. The Special Representative will also make field visits to 
Koidu, Bo, Daru, Makeni and Magburaka.

For further information, please contact: Jean-Victor Nkolo, Communications 
Officer, Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for 
Children and Armed Conflict (OSRSG), tel: +1-212-963-9879, fax: 
+1-212-963-0807, e-mail: nkolo@un.org; or in Freetown: Masimba Tafirenyika, 
Acting Spokesman, UNAMSIL, tel: +232-22-273183/4, ext. 6817, e-mail: 
tafirenyika@un.org.


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