This paper examines gender justice and cultural diversity in Sierra Leone following its devastating 1991-2002 civil war. It traces how systematic sexual violence during the conflict created lasting social stigma against survivors, analyzes the Special Court for Sierra Leone's limited success in prosecuting gender crimes, and investigates how displacement and ethnic composition reshaped the country's economy and community structures. The paper argues that understanding Sierra Leone's complex diversity—encompassing 18 ethnic groups and 149 chiefdoms—is essential for recognizing both the persistence of traditional power structures and the vulnerabilities of women and girls in postwar recovery.
The average person reading news about the West African nation of Sierra Leone in 2015 might never look beyond the Ebola crisis to understand the country more deeply. Indeed, this epidemic took a serious toll; in the first week of January, 248 new cases were reported, and thousands died from Ebola in Sierra Leone. Although Sierra Leone remained "by far" the "worst-affected" country in Africa, positive signs suggested that the spread of the virus might be slowing down (Reuters, 2015). However, this paper opens the door to a deeper understanding of Sierra Leone by examining how issues related to diversity and gender fairness have impacted its citizens. Rather than viewing the country solely through the lens of health crisis, this analysis explores the social and economic consequences of civil war trauma and the structures that perpetuate inequality.
Any cultural critique of diversity and gender issues in Sierra Leone must begin with a historical review of how the nation reached its current independent status. The civil war in Sierra Leone (1991–2002) drew worldwide attention due to reported atrocities. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) documented 40,242 instances of human rights violations, including rape, maiming, destruction of property, and forced labor, and identified 14,995 victims of these atrocities (Bah, 2013). Approximately 20,000 citizens were killed, and an estimated 100,000 amputations occurred. In the aftermath, the United Nations instituted a "New Humanitarianism" (NH) policy designed to build a stronger peace. As the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) noted, "Millions of human beings are at the mercy of civil wars" (Bah, 2013, p. 7).
Even though the United Nations intervened and the civil war ended long ago, serious problems persist in Sierra Leone regarding gender justice. Nine years of brutal conflict left scars beyond politics and body counts. According to an article in the peer-reviewed journal Lancet, the civil war "unleashed widespread and systematic sexual violence" against women and girls (Bogert et al., 2001). Rebels used sexual violence to "terrorize the civilian population and ultimately to control them" (Bogert et al., 2001, p. 304).
Victims of sexual violence suffered serious health consequences, including transmission of HIV/AIDS, and the acts against women contributed to the demeaning of the feminine gender, which remains an enormous social problem in Sierra Leone (Bogert et al., 2001, p. 304). The trauma was not only individual but also social, embedding gendered inequality into the fabric of postwar society.
After the civil war, a Special Court for Sierra Leone was established in Freetown to ensure justice for crimes against women and girls. This international tribunal investigated not only rapes, but rapes committed with "sticks, burning wood, and hot oil," along with sexual slavery, mutilation, forced childbearing, and forced marriage (Oosterveld, 2009). Between 215,000 and 275,000 women and children were estimated to have been impacted by gender-based violence.
However, the four initial judgments rendered by the court "failed" to make any meaningful contribution to justice. The Special Court provided only "modest but flawed" input to the practice of gender-based transitional justice (Oosterveld, 2009, p. 76). More egregiously, the court failed to convict members of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) for the crime against humanity of "sexual slavery" and overlooked gender-based crimes committed by Sierra Leone's Civil Defence Forces (Oosterveld, 2009, p. 76).
The Special Court, established by the United Nations to build peace and contribute to "national reconciliation," was intended to confront crimes considered "outrages upon personal dignity" including rape, forced prostitution, and indecent assault (Oosterveld, 2009, p. 77). Yet it is clear that the court failed in its responsibility, whether due to corruption or incompetence, leaving many survivors without institutional acknowledgment of their suffering.
Author Tsehai Berhane-Selassie writes in the peer-reviewed European Journal of Development Research that approximately half of Sierra Leone's population was displaced by the civil war (Berhane-Selassie, 2009). Women returning from forced labor and other camps found that the sexual violence inflicted upon them rendered them socially unacceptable. They became outcasts, rejected because they were labeled "polluted"; husbands rejected them as wives, and most Sierra Leonean men would not marry "the widows and single parents from unknown fathers" (Berhane-Selassie, 2009, p. 745).
The stigma was so intense that many women preferred staying away from their communities, trying instead to survive "in altered socio-economic environments" (Berhane-Selassie, 2009, p. 745). Those who returned found that men would no longer clear brush for them—a task men routinely performed before the civil war—so they could grow crops and be productive (Berhane-Selassie, 2009).
The theoretical explanation for this newly instituted cultural diversity lies in adherence to past cultural practices, including Islamic practices. A woman could only marry her deceased husband's brother, if one existed, or another family member, and marriage was almost always linked to land title held by men. Women could provide for their children—even those born during enslavement—if they had land to till. Because women were rejected as "polluted," many were left economically "destitute," members of a diverse outsider group struggling to reintegrate (Berhane-Selassie, 2009, p. 745). The civil war thus created a new kind of diversity that was gendered in substance and evil in moral consequence.
Rachel Glennerster and colleagues point out that post-civil war patterns of ethnic settlement explain part of Sierra Leone's current cultural diversity. There was a "systematic movement of individuals" toward cultural regions where each person's original ethnic group was "historically more numerous" (Glennerster et al., 2013, p. 286). Education also played a role: the greater a woman's education prior to the civil war, the greater her likelihood of being attracted to "diverse areas" of Sierra Leone upon return (Glennerster et al., 2013, p. 286).
To understand "relatively good inter-ethnic cooperation" in Sierra Leone today, Glennerster traces the country's colonial history under British rule. The British employed a policy called "decentralized despotism," in which tribal chiefs—elected by "ruling families"—were empowered by colonial authorities (Glennerster et al., 2013, p. 287). These chiefs, who hold tenure for life, retain strong authority over local politics today. They collect taxes from citizens, receive royalties from diamond mines and the logging industry, and can legally punish tax defaulters through "public embarrassment and corporal punishment" (Glennerster et al., 2013, pp. 287–288). Theoretically, ethnic diversity does not diminish the power of these chiefs, which matters for understanding postwar social organization.
Sierra Leone was founded in the late eighteenth century by former slaves known as "Krio," or "Creoles," who were granted privileged political and economic positions by the British. Today, Krio—a language part English with numerous other linguistic influences—is Sierra Leone's official language, giving the country a "national identity" that transcends tribal realities (Glennerster et al., 2013, p. 290).
Yet chiefdom boundaries remain intact; there are 149 chiefdoms with an average population of about 22,000 each, demonstrating how diversity persists despite independence and civil war (Glennerster et al., 2013, p. 290). Sierra Leone is not only one of the world's poorest countries but also "one of the world's most diverse countries" (Glennerster et al., 2013, p. 290). In addition to 149 chiefdoms, there are 18 "major" ethnic groups, the most dominant being the Mende (32.2 percent of the population) and Temne (31.8 percent).
Each ethnic group in Sierra Leone has its own rituals, customs, and history, and anyone contemplating work in Sierra Leone in the future must be fully informed and cognizant of the cultural and ethnic diversity within the country. Moreover, one must be a good listener, a good learner, and certain to be flexible and nonjudgmental when confronted with questions about purposes, history, and hopes for the future. Understanding Sierra Leone requires moving beyond crisis narratives to recognize the enduring structures of inequality, the resilience of survivors, and the complexity of post-conflict recovery.
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