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United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)

UNIFEM works to support innovative and experimental activities benefiting women along with national and regional priorities. The organization serves as a catalyst in order to ensure the involvement of women in mainstream development activities, as often as possible at the pre-invested stage.

UNIFEM in Sierra Leone

Currently, UNIFEM is working on gender, HIV/AIDS and human rights issues. UNIFEM is working to mainstream gender and human rights into Sierra Leone HIV/AIDS Response Program (SHARP).

To ensure that the gender dimensions of the HIV/AIDS pandemic are addressed, UNIFEM commissioned a Knowledge, Attitude, Beliefs, and Practices (KABP) survey in three districts to find out the reasons for higher female vulnerability to HIV/AIDS in Sierra Leone. Educational programs will be implemented in the three districts based on the results.

UNIFEM will also work with the Ministry of Social Welfare and Gender and other interested partners to produce Sierra Leone's first Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) Report.

UNIFEM also works on peace and security initiatives and will be supporting gender justice programs at community levels by providing sensitization and training in human rights for customary law officers and traditional leaders.

Additionally, UNIFEM supports initiatives at community levels to address gender-based violence. This includes the development of a national training manual on violence against women and the creation of a women's network against violence.

Lastly, UNIFEM supports legal reform in the areas of women's rights and is helping draft new laws to stop violence against women.

After Sierra Leone's bloody civil war, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was created to establish an impartial record of the abuses that occurred in the war, as a step towards achieving national reconciliation. UNIFEM helped Sierra Leone’s TRC fully respond to the needs and concerns of women. UNIFEM assisted several groups in their efforts to help women come forward and to address the immediate medical needs of rape victims.

However, early in their efforts, commission investigators found that gathering information specifically about sexual violence was not easy. In Sierra Leone, as in many countries, women and girls confront social taboos against speaking publicly about rape and other sexual violence. In their own communities they are stigmatized when they admit they had been raped or sexually abused. To help break such barriers, UNIFEM intervened with advice, training and other support for TRC staff and especially for women themselves. With the work of UNFIEM before and during the evidence-gathering process, in collaboration with local civil society organization, played a vital role in making it possible for so many women to break their silence and for the commission’s final report to place such a strong spotlight on the horrific crimes perpetrated against the women.