Gender and Transitional Justice
An Assessment of the Contribution of Transitional Justice Mechanisms in Addressing Gender-Based Violence in post-Conflict Sierra Leone
Introduction
Sierra Leone, a relatively small country with a population of just over 6 million people, has been the focus of considerable attention due to the recent Ebola epidemic and, prior to that, the decade-long civil war (1991-2002) (Mills, Nesbitt-Ahmed, Diggins & Mackieu, 2015, p. 4). After the war, the transition from civil war to peace witnessed a number of landmark procedural innovations with widespread implications for gender justice. The decade-long conflict had shattered the West African country, displacing more than one million people and leaving more than two hundred thousand women and girls dealing with the aftermath of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). Then, in 1999, the Lomé Peace Agreement traded amnesty for peace, making provision for the creation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Sierra Leone to work parallel to the Special Court of Sierra Leone (otherwise called the Special Court or the SCSL) in order to prosecute those who bore “the greatest responsibility” for mass atrocities committed during the civil war.
While there is a growing consensus that truth and reconciliation commissions as a transitional justice mechanism can be effective tools “in the construction of a post-conflict society that is more democratic and more respectful of human rights” (Wielbelhans-Hrahm, 2010, p. 3), it is also true that integrating and addressing issues of gender justice in transitional justice processes remains a major deficit. Equally, while Sierra Leone’s transitional justice mechanisms made some unique strides in the promotion of gender justice, some scholars and gender activists have maintained that both the TRC and the Special Court fell short in addressing the sexual and gender-based violence that was so rampant during the conflict. This paper seeks to assess Sierra Leone’s transition from civil war to peace by analyzing the successes and failures of Sierra Leone’s transitional justice mechanisms in addressing gender-based violence committed in the heat of the conflict. More specifically, and drawing from existing literature on gender and transitional justice in general and on literature on the case of Sierra Leone in particular, this work attempts to assess how adequately Sierra Leone’s TRC and the Special Court have addressed gender-based violence committed during the war and to what extent gender justice has been achieved by means of these initiatives. The impetus for this paper springs form the fact that in recent years, “violence committed against women during armed conflicts has received considerable attention” (Turano, 2011, p. 1045). It is therefore important, now that the mandates of both mechanisms of transitional justice in post-conflict Sierra Leone have expired, to critically assess how gender-based violence was addressed by the TRC and the Special Court.
To achieve this purpose, the paper commences with the definition of the key terms employed. It then provides a background information situating gender-based violence (GBV) within the wider context of Sierra Leone’s brutal civil war (1991-2002). Next, the paper examines Sierra Leone’s twin transitional justice mechanisms designed in the aftermath of the civil war, focusing on the question of gender and transitional justice by assessing how the Special Court and the TRC of Sierra Leone each addressed gender-based violence against women. Making the argument that by failing to address gendered aspects of the civil war, truth-seeking processes have not delivered justice and reconciliation to Sierra Leonean women emerging out of the conflict situation, the work is brought to a shutter with recommendations that can be replicated in other processes of transitional justice, based on the lessons learned from the case of Sierra Leone, and a list of references.
Conceptualization of key Terms
Transitional Justice
Democracy and the rule of law are necessary elements for ensuring long-lasting peace in any country, and so the denial of these two elements make it conducive for the eruption of armed conflict and the establishment of totalitarian regimes. In the aftermath of a violent conflict, efforts directed at peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction, through transitional justice, provide opportunities to establish democracy and the rule of law once again (Mindzie, 2010, p. 113).
The term “transitional justice” has been defined simply as “a set of mechanisms and approaches to address past violence” (Olsen, Payne & Reiter, 2010, p. 9). In a more detailed manner, Kaminski, Napela & O’Neil (as cited in Mindzie, p. 113), define it as “the formal and informal procedures implemented by a group or institution of accepted legitimacy around the time of a transition out of an oppressive or violent social order, for rendering justice to perpetrators and their collaborators, as well as to their victims.” According to the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ, 2015), these procedures “include criminal prosecution, truth commissions, reparations programs, and various kinds of institutional reforms.” The primary objective of transition justice, Katherine Franke points out, is to “honor the injuries and crimes of the past while creating the possibilities for new ways of being the future” (Franke, 2006, p. 823).
Gender-Based Violence
There are many different definitions that attempt to capture the broad concept of gender-based violence (GBV). According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), “sexual violence, gender-based violence and violence against women are terms that are commonly used interchangeably” (UNHCR, 2003, p. 10). UNHCR goes to define gender-based violence as follows:
Gender-based violence is violence that is directed against a person on the basis of gender or sex. It includes acts that inflict physical, mental or sexual harm or suffering, threats of such acts, coercion and other deprivations of liberty…. While women, men, boys and girls can be victims of gender-based violence, women and girls are the main victims (UNHCR, 2003, p. 11).

This paper, while acknowledging that men and boys also suffer from sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), focuses on GBV as experienced by women and girls during the decade-long civil war in Sierra Leone, for “although men and boys also fall victim to GBV, it has a disproportionate effect on women and girls, who are much more likely to experience GBV in all its forms” (International Alert, 2007, p. 9).

Having defined the key terms to be used in this study, it now suffices to turn to the consideration of gender based violence within the wider particular context of Sierra Leone’s civil war (1991-2002).

Background: Gender-Based Violence in the Context of Sierra Leone’s Civil War

In March 1991, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) invaded Sierra Leone with the aim of ousting the corrupt and autocratic government of Joseph Saidu Momoh, setting the tone for what was to be one of West Africa’s longest and most vicious civil wars (Gyimah, 2009, p. 31). The origin of the war can be ascribed to several years of bad and exploitative governance marked by corruption, nepotism, discrimination against certain social groups, poverty and unemployment, and the misappropriation of state resources (Shabas, 2006, p. 22). Not unlike many wars, the decade-long war profiled several factions: the RUF and the AFRC – Armed Forces Revolutionary Council as well as the CDF – Civil Defense Forces which joined forces with the AFRC in fighting the rebels.
The total number of those who died during the war ranges from 20,000 to 75,000 (Bates, 2010, p. 5), but this does not tell the entire story. Besides pillaging, the destruction of property and the devastating impact on Sierra Leone’s already poor economy, the war was characterized by extreme brutality, arbitrary killings, the extensive conscription of child soldiers, campaigns of mutilations and amputations, the deliberate targeting of women through rape and other sexual violence (Bates, 2010, p. 5) and other atrocities such as abductions, forced pregnancy, sexual slavery, forced labour and trafficking (International Alert, 2007, p. 11). The 2005 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report noted that: All of the armed factions, in particular the RUF [Revolutionary United Front] and the AFRC [Armed Forces Revolutionary Council] embarked on a systematic and deliberate strategy to rape women and girls, especially those between 10-18 years of age, with the intention of sowing terror amongst the population, violating women and girls and breaking down every norm and custom of traditional society (TRC Report, 2005, p. 162).
According to International Alert, approximately 250,000 women and girls in Sierra Leone were victims of sexual and gender-based violence during the civil war (2007, p. 11) and “more than 500,000 were forced to flee their homes to escape violence” (Mills, Nesbitt-Ahmed, Diggins & Mackieu, 2015, p. 9). Many of these women suffered serious reproductive health complications including “unwanted pregnancies, vasco-vaginal and vesico-rectal fistulas, prolapsed uterus, and infection with sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS” (International Alert, 2007, p. 11). In addition to the physical trauma associated with GBV, the social impact on both the victims and their communities has been equally devastating. As International Alert notes:
Women in Sierra Leone have historically had little control over their sexuality, and a premium if placed on girls’ virginity which is perceived as ‘belonging’ to the family. When a woman is violated, particularly if she is virgin, it is not seen just as an individual act but as a violation of male members of her community (International Alert, 2007, p. 12).
The report by International Alert goes on to show the damaging effects of GBV during the war on victims in the following words:
…after the war many women faced stigma, ostracization and shame, and they were often rejected by their husbands for being raped or having been ‘rebel wives’. This stigma was particularly marked in cases where women were pregnant or had given birth to children borne from rape during the war. In some cases, the stigma experienced by women affected by gender-based violence has led them into prostitution as a means of survival, since there are few other options available for women considered to be ‘tarnished’ by sexual violence. In other cases, women simply chose to remain silent about the abuses they had endured (Intenational Alert, 2007, p. 12). Numerous attempts at putting an end to the war, including the Abidjan Peace Accord (1996) and the Conakry Peace Plan (1997), were unsuccessful as the conflict parties defaulted on them (Gyimah, 2009, p. 31). In 1999, the maiming and rape of approximately 6,000 people in a day led to the signing of the Lome Peace Accord. Since then, the atrocities of the conflict have been brought to popular attention through the Hollywood film, Blood Diamonds and Ishmael Beah’s memoirs, A Long Way Gone (Teale, 2010, p. 70).
Despite the widespread evidence of the systematic targeting of women and girls during the conflict, there has not been sufficient publicity about the experiences of Sierra Leonean women during the war. As a result, the return to peace, democracy and the rule of law after these years of war did not bring much positive difference to the women in post-conflict Sierra Leone who were victims of GBV during the war. The displacement and loss of family members and the breakdown of socio-economic infrastructure meant that women would continue to live with their trauma amid myriad health and reproductive concerns (Gyimah, 2009, p. 32). Albeit women suffered in as much as did men, they were targeted by virtue of their gender, for example, through rape, sexual slavery, forced marriage, and a number of nonsexual crimes committed in a gendered way (Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 2004, p. 2). All military groups, including the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and the Civil Defence Forces (CDF), were guilty of committing these atrocities, based on pre-existing structural patterns of gender-based violence and the marginalized position of women in the Sierra Leonean society (Teale, 2010, p. 71).
Sierra Leone’s Transitional Justice Mechanisms and Gender-Based Violence

While the Lome Peace Agreement did not bring an end to the war, amongst other things it made provision for the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission together with the Special Court for Sierra Leone to seek justice and establish the rule of law in the post-conflict period (Bates, 2010, p. 5). Because of “the implementation of both a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the Special Court for Sierra Leone” (Bortoli, 2014, p. 1), the case of Sierra Leone presents a unique platform for analysis. Both mechanisms “made specific efforts to address the particular forms of violence suffered by various Sierra Leonean women, to an extent unseen in transitional justice mechanisms elsewhere” (Teale, 2010, p. 71). However, this study focuses more on crucial questions – questions of gender justice - these mechanisms raised in terms of addressing sexual and gender-based violence in post-conflict Sierra Leone.
The Special Court for Sierra Leone
The Special Court for Sierra Leone (henceforth denoted as the Special Court) was set up in 2002 in response to a request by the Government of Sierra Leone (GoSL) made in 2000 to the United Nations for a “special court” that would prosecute serious crimes committed during the country’s decade-long (1991-2002) civil war against civilians and UN peacekeepers (The Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone, n.d.). the special court, the world’s first hybrid international tribunal located in the country in which the atrocities were committed (Teale, 2010, p. 72), was mandated to try those “bearing the greatest responsibility” for crimes committed in the country after November 30, 1996, the date of the failed Abidjan Peace Accord (The Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone, n.d.).
From its inception, the Special Court made the investigation and prosecution of sexual and gender-based crimes committed during the war an especially high priority. Significantly, the Special Court set an international precedent legally in finding forced marriage as a crime against humanity. This realization goes towards the recognition of the entirety of women’s experiences in forced marriages. Nonetheless, other areas of the Special Court’s work have been marred by less success and outright failures. The partiality on the part of some Judges of the Trial Chamber towards sexual offences committed by CDF members points to a degree of insensitivity towards sexual and gender-based crimes. It is this insensitivity towards sexual and gender-based violations that formed the basis of Lotta Teale’s statement that:
Most notable has been the refusal of Trial Chamber Judges to allow any evidence of sexual violence to be heard in the case against members of the CDF, a pro-government militia group who were generally believed not to have engaged in sexual violence because touching women would nullify the special protections endowed on them by [traditional medicine men] (Teale, 2010, p. 72).

As a result, its legacy in terms of addressing gender-based violence committed during the war remains ambivalent and this is further made clear in the paragraphs that follow.
Testimony of Victims before the Special Court

In the cases that appeared before the Special Court, “the Prosecution sought to prove charges of sexual and gender-based violence through the testimony of the victims themselves” (Teale, 2010, p. 73). A study conducted by the Witness and Victim Section of the Special Court indicated that most witnesses found it less traumatizing testifying due largely to the comprehensive support they received which included medical treatment and counselling (Charters, Horn & Vahidy, 2008, pp. 14-15). However, a supplementary research done by Staffs and Stepakoff (2007), suggested that many of those who were not allowed the opportunity to testify before the Special Court about their experiences of sexual violence especially in the case of the CDF were distressed psychologically. This clearly undermined the Special Court’s integrity in delivering justice to women who were victims of sexual and gender-based violations during the conflict.
Number of Prosecutions and Prison Sentences by the Special Court The fact that not many people were prosecuted by the Special Court points to gender injustice. International law recognizes rape as a crime to the extent that “there is no justice if the individual [rapist] is not punished” (Teale, 2010, p. 74). Yet, the Special Court’s mandate limits it to prosecute only those with the “greatest responsibility.” To throw more light on this, Teale alludes to the story of a woman who “asked the then Prosecutor whether the man down the road who raped her, who still laughs at her every time he sees her, would be prosecuted. The response she received was merely that he would if he bore the greatest responsibility” (Teale, 2010, p. 75). Accordingly, only a few indictments were issued by the Prosecutor. The small number of indictments was also due to the fact that the Lome Peace Accord had provided amnesty for all offenses that were committed before July 1999 and so no nationwide prosecutions were possible.
While it is true that a number of RUF members were tried in national courts for offences committed after the amnesty period, none of those cases were related to SGBV. In fact, “blame for sexual violence committed during the war is still often cast on the victim…. Many women are still afraid to admit to having been bush wives or raped for fear of suffering the ‘double victimization’ of rejection by husbands and community” (Teale, 2010, p. 75). Hence, while many female victims of SGBV continue living in fear of their past being exposed, perpetrators continue to walk free thanks to the culture of impunity. The fact that more perpetrators could not be indicted by the Prosecutor during the amnesty period, together with the culture of impunity after the amnesty period, points to a limitation in the extent to which justice for sexual and gender-based violence was achieved through prosecutions. Hence, women’s justice needs were not catered for from this perspective.
More contentious were the state of affairs regarding imprisonment: 45 to 50 years in the AFRC case, 15 to 20 years in the CDF case and 25 to 52 years in the RUF case, to be served in different countries (Teale, 2010, p. 77). These sentences to be served in prisons of international standards were greeted with incredulity by many Sierra Leoneans. In an interview with the Director of SLANGO, a gender activist remonstrated that “when the victims are suffering every day for their injuries without compensation, people lack respect for a system that treats those found guilty to three meals a day and free medical care to keep them into old age” (Teale, 2010, p. 77). From this, it can be inferred that locally relevant justice for women who were victims of gender-based violence during the conflict was not seen as a matter of urgency. For instead of appealing to the local community sense of justice, it was the internationally imposed standards of justice that reigned supreme, without attempting to involve the community in decisions regarding punishment.
Cost and Duration of the Special Court’s Proceedings While there was broad support throughout Sierra Leone for the prosecution of crimes committed during the war, the level of trust in the Special Court was another reason gender justice was not really achieved through the Court. The high cost of the prosecution of a few individuals proved to be a major source of dissatisfaction for some, and an injustice in itself for others (Teale, 2010, p. 76). The $150 million that had already been spent on the Special Court by mid-2008 in a country where a majority of the population live on less that $2 per day was viewed by many Sierra Leoneans as money that could otherwise have been spent on victims. Some went as far as suggesting that expatriate staff were using the Special Court as a means of thriving from the country’s quandary, a resentment that was exacerbated by disenchantment over the relatively lengthy duration of the proceedings (Teale, 2010, p. 76). Owing to the high cost and lengthy duration of the proceedings, many Sierra Leoneans and gender activists felt that it would have been better to establish “a trust fund for victims like that in existence at the International Criminal Court” as a way of ensuring reparative justice for victims of sexual and gender-based violence during the war (Teale, 2010, p. 76).
The failure of the Special Court in guaranteeing non-recurrence of GBV in the present
Beyond its mandate, the Special Court had set its sight high in contributing to the restoration of democracy and the rule of law in post-conflict Sierra Leone (Teale, 2010, p. 78). It was thus necessary for the Court to look beyond their mandate and assure victims that impunity for sexual and gender-based violence would be seriously prosecuted if it re-occurred, for “the post-conflict period represents an opportunity to reflect on and renegotiate value systems that may have protected community members in the past” (Teale, 2010, p. 78), but now fall short in the present. Nevertheless, sexual violence against women and girls continue on a daily basis in Sierra Leone. As Nahla Valji observed:
Research across post-conflict societies reveals that violence does not simply cease with the signing of a peace accord, but for various reasons – including pervasive trauma, easy access to guns, militarized identities, normalization of conflict and the devastation of judicial systems – violence carries through and can even intensify during a transition period; playing our in ways which have continuity and a rooting in the causes and consequences of the conflict but which can also take on new forms (Valji, 2007, p. 4).

Having been well-placed to influence future prosecutions of cases of sexual and gender-based violence which had up till then often been dismissed as private family affairs, the Special Court remained high profile and out of touch with the common man. As a result, “the attitudes which allowed gender-based violence to be committed with impunity during the conflict are still prevalent today” (Teale, 2010, p. 80), a sentiment echoed by International Alert (2007): the victimization “resulting from the abuses suffered during the war and the stigmatization and marginalization experienced at the end of the war, continue to affect many women and girls in Sierra Leone” (International Alert, 2007, p. 12). This ‘sin of omission’ by the Special Court to create conditions that would result in more accountability for sexual and gender-based violence in post-conflict Sierra Leone, coupled with the general failure to prosecute and punish perpetrators of rape and other forms of gender-based violence, has made it more difficult to change attitudes and practices towards gender-based violence in the country and has exacerbated the view that such crimes do not constitute a grave violation.

Given that TRCs have increasingly become the most adopted transitional justice mechanism in most countries emerging from conflict like Sierra Leone in 2002 (Gyimah, 2009, p. 23), it now suffices to turn to how the TRCSL addressed GBV in post-conflict Sierra Leone.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Sierra Leone

Generally, truth and reconciliation commissions are established to “help establish the truth about the past; promote accountability among perpetrators of human rights violations; provide a public platform for victims; inform and catalyze public debate; recommend victim reparation; recommend necessary legal and institutional reforms; promote social reconciliation; and help to consolidate a democratic transition” (Boafo-Arthur, 2005, p. 105). While the provision for the establishment of the TRC was made for in the 1999 Lome Peace Accord, it was the TRC ACT of 2000 that later established it. Unlike the Special Court, the TRC “was more victim-focused and forward-looking than the Court” (Teale, 2010, p. 82). Its mandate was: …to create an impartial historical record of violations and abuses of human rights and international humanitarian law related to the armed conflict in Sierra Leone, from the beginning of the Conflict in 1991 to the signing of the Lome Peace Agreement; to address impunity, to respond to the needs of the victims, to promote healing and reconciliation and to prevent a repetition of the violations and abuses suffered (Sierra Leone TRC Act, 2000, article 6, paragraph 1).
From the onset, the TRC prioritized the cause of gender justice, committing itself to “[restoring] the human dignity of victims and [promoting] reconciliation by providing an opportunity for victims to give an account of the violations and abuses suffered…giving special attention to the subject of sexual abuses…” (Sierra Leone TRC Act, 2000, article 6b). In addition, the Commission made efforts to capture and address the traumatizing experiences of women during the war by including closed sessions for testimonies on SGBV and using female statement-takers in every district (Teale, 2010, p. 82).
Although the publication of the Commission’s report in 2004 with a detailed historical record and recommendations for improving the condition of women in post-conflict Sierra Leone was seen largely as a positive development, a study in 2006, entitled, “Searching for Truth and Reconciliation in Sierra Leone: An Initial Study of the Performance and Impact of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” was released by the Sierra Leone Working Group on Truth and Reconciliation. After acknowledging that “there has been progress,” the report also pointed out that the truth and reconciliation commission “has been a deeply flawed and problematic process from its birth in 1999” (Sierra Leone Working Group on Truth and Reconciliation, 2006, p. 2). While a number of concerns loomed large (Weinstein, Fletcher, Vinck & Pham, 2010, p. 29), it is the manner in which Sierra Leone’s TRC as a transitional justice mechanism attempted to address gender-based violence during the civil war that this section chiefly concerns itself with.

Lack of implementation of the Recommendations of the TRC Report

Some progress has been experienced in the implementation of the TRC Report’s recommendations, most notably, the passage of three ‘Gender Bills’ in June 2007 - the Domestic Violence Act, the Devolution of Estates Act and the Registration of Customary Marriage and Divorce Act – all of which have assisted in addressing gender-based violence by enabling women to inherit and own property, repealing laws that discriminate against women, and enacting legislation against domestic violence (Teale, 2010, p. 84). These laws have played an instrumental role in providing the required legal framework to address GBV in Sierra Leone while at the same time demonstrating the government’s firm commitment to protecting women’s rights in post-conflict Sierra Leone (Sonke Gender Justice, 2015, p. 33). Yet, unfaithful to its obligation to “faithfully and timeously implement the recommendations of the report” (Sierra Leone TRC Act, 2000, article 17), the Government of Sierra Leone did not follow through to ensure many recommendations put forth by the Commission were implemented, in part due to the lack of adequate funding for an independent monitoring system, a change in political leadership and political priorities (Teale, 2010, p. 83).
Truth-telling without Reparations

Through the TRC hearings, many women who were victims of sexual and gender-based violence during the war had “hoped some catharsis would come from acting as witnesses” (Teale, 2010, p. 84). Unfortunately, not all women who testified returned home relieved. A number of them went back to the painful realities of their lives confirming Priscilla Hayner’s caution that TRCs should not be viewed as vehicles for psychological healing (Hayner, 2001, p. 139) and that witnesses could feel much worse after, particularly those who had high hopes that investigations on their cases would commence and later heard nothing more from the TRC (Hayner, 2001, p. 139). That the TRC did not provide much follow-up support for those women who testified before it proved to be a failure in promoting gender justice.

Conclusion and Recommendations

This paper has sought to assess the extent to which transitional justice mechanisms in Sierra Leone addressed the issue of sexual and gender-based violence, arguing that while the Special Court and the TRC “set some good precedents on gender justice at the international level and successfully supported some victims of sexual violence who testified before the Court” (Teale, 2010, p. 81), they did not optimally succeed in addressing sexual and gender-based violence committed against women and girls during the decade-long war. By failing to address gendered aspects of the civil war, these twin transitional justice processes have not delivered justice and reconciliation to Sierra Leonean women in the post-conflict situation.
This paper does not contend to offer easy solutions to the shortcomings of these processes. Nonetheless, even as these failings were specific to Sierra Leone, the recommendations that follow could also apply to other contexts based on lessons learnt from Sierra Leone, in order to better address crimes of sexual and gender-based violence committed during conflict. To begin with, Laura Turano has pointed out, “the historical treatment of crimes committed against women illustrate that women’s plight is often ignored or distorted” (Turano, 2011, p. 1086). For example, “traditionally, international laws on rape have been treated as a crime of honour, not a grave breach of law; they have not been about protecting individual women from an act of violence, but about protecting men form insults inflicted on dependent women by other men” (Chappell, 2012, p. 43). Although Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court now considers rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy and other forms of sexual and gender-based violence as crimes against humanity and war crimes (Chappell, 2012, p. 45), by putting an amnesty clause in transitional justice mechanism Acts, the international community is like a double-edged sword. Removing ambiguities from international law that make sexual and gender-based violence criminal while at the same time granting amnesty to perpetrators of such crimes is critical. This will translate to more justice for women and as a result, and will go a long way to ensure accountability. Accountability and justice for crimes that were committed during the conflict are essential needs which can be addressed through “investigations and trials at the national level, truth and reconciliation commissions (TRC), traditional justice systems, or hybrid, internationalized or international criminal courts” (Hollis, 2013, p. 10).
At the national level, good governance and the strengthening of institutional capacity is crucial in curbing sexual and gender-based violence. In 1996, President Kabbah formed the Ministry of Gender and Children’s Affairs (which two years later became Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs) in recognition of the plight of women and children in Sierra Leone. Sadly, the ministry is one of the least-funded within the government and has had problems recruiting and retaining qualified staff (International Alert, 2007, p. 22). Therefore, in collaboration with its international partners, the Government of Sierra Leone needs to strengthen its institutions through qualitative staffing and funding. For, “institutional limitations can make some transitional justice mechanisms better or worse suited for responding to crimes committed against women” (Turano, 2011, p. 1085). Therefore, the need for institutions, both state and non-state alike, to collaborate in addressing sexual and gender-based violence in post-conflict settings cannot be over-emphasized. To this end, reforming the judicial system and the national police service can further capacitate domestic mechanisms to prosecute gender-based violence.
For non-state actors, investing in educating the public about the ills of and the existing laws against GBV can make gender injustice become a thing of the past in Sierra Leone. This could be done by finding more concrete ways to feed into domestic campaigns that seek to address gender-based violence.
Besides, there is need to create incentives for truth-telling. The case of Sierra Leone demonstrates the importance of victim and witness testimony in terms of bringing to light the actual experiences of women and girls in conflict situations. While women were encouraged by the TRC to participate and testify before both the TRC and the Special Court, many victims of sexual violence during the course of the war had few incentives to report these crimes in the aftermath (International Alert, 2007, p. 21). The double burden of stigmatization and victimization by coming forward and telling their stories was a strong deterrent for many women in post-conflict Sierra Leone. There is need, therefore, for more research and ground work to be done on how to penetrate the patriarchal system in the country which legitimizes sexual and gender-based violence. This way, some of the structural factors that enable and exacerbate sexual and gender-based violence could be addressed. Besides, truth-telling could help find ways to prosecute more perpetrators while at the same time providing some form of reparation for victims.

The United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1325 of 2000 and 1820 of 2008 both acknowledge the gender dimension of conflict and peacebuilding processes, and the ensuing role of women in peacebuilding. Since then, a burgeoning literature has emerged on how transitional justice mechanisms, such as the Special Court for Sierra Leone and Sierra Leone’s truth and reconciliation commission, can be rendered gender-sensitive and further deliver justice to women in societies that are emerging out of conflict situations. But simply acknowledging women’s experiences of gender-based violence during conflict is not sufficient. Perhaps, more pressing is the need to recognize that transitional justice mechanisms may be better equipped institutionally to be able to provide justice for them.

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