Is Rape on the Rise in Sierra Leone?

With the flurry of new activism in the Sierra Leonean community on rape and sexual abuse I’ve seen a lot of statements being made as facts. I won’t argue one way or the other about that, but I do want to just share some quick thoughts.

As more awareness is raised about rape and sexual abuse and more people are made to know about their rights, the reporting of cases will increase. Now this will have many believing that there is some type of epidemic in society and may cause people to go into a frenzy, especially government officials/representatives. There is a tendency to then enact rules and regulations that become severe and not quite addressing the root cause of the issue. It is therefore important to note that increase reporting does not mean that rape and sexual abuse is on the rise. It just means that people feel more empowered to report and are becoming more aware. It means we are getting closer to a much clearer picture on occurrences.

It is a fact that rape and sexual abuse especially in societies like ours is severely under reported. This is due to a myriad of reasons from the stigma that victims must live with to actual fear of safety that victims feel for exposing the perpetrators. Many rape and sexual abuse cases happen in the home and so that comes with it some uncomfortable issues that most people don’t want to deal with.

I therefore urge people to be accurate in their mention of the data around rape and sexual abuse. I also urge the government to not be deterred by the increase in reporting to police, but instead change their measure of impact or “success.” Yes, when it comes to this type of issue, your general inclination is to measure success by wanting reduction of occurrence, but here is another idea. You should be happy that more people are reporting, and you need to change what you see as success. Success right now for Sierra Leone would look like more cases reaching court and offenders being prosecuted. Success can be measured by more programs for boys and men addressing the underlying issues and the mindsets, so basically rape culture in society. There are already a lot of girls and women’s programs on these issues, but I guess the QUALITY of those can be increased. That is what success should look like.

Eventually your success can then be measured by reduction of cases…MAYBE. This is all dependent on whether the other things mentioned are effective. So again, is rape and sexual abuse really on the rise in Sierra Leone or is there something else going on?