Hawa's Story. Save the Children Week

Save the Children Week raises awareness of girls like Hawa. Read her story..

Hawa, aged just 14, lives in a small, Muslim community near the border with Guinea and Liberia that was on the frontline during the civil war. When she was eight years old, Hawa was abducted by rebel militias.

"When the war came to our village it was five o'clock in the morning. There were 20 men. We ran to the bush, but I got separated from my family. I was with people from the village and we were captured by the rebels and taken to Liberia."

"At first the rebel militia wanted me to be one of their wives, but I was not fully matured, so they had me doing hard labour, like cooking, fetching water and wood".

"There were about ten women there and many men, maybe 20. Everybody slept together.

He only had sex with me. Sometimes I would join him just to get food. I was a wife for about eight months. I was not feeling well, because I had not even started my periods. I used to have a pain in my abdomen.

"I escaped when there was an attack on one of the villages. I walked three days in the bush and travelled to another town, where I met my parents. They were there as refugees, labouring just to get food to eat.

"I was happy to see my parents. They were happy to see me, but they were sad about the way the rebels had treated me. It was very sad when I came home and met my sisters because I felt that I was somehow discriminated against because I had already been raped.

"Save the Children talks to me about it. What Save the Children has started doing for us, by getting us to meet other communities and the other children, has helped. We've asked them to put us in touch with skills training so that we can learn something better."

After two years back living with her parents, when she was just ten, rebels came back to Hawa's village and she was captured again. She was with them for two years. When she returned to her village she was pregnant and is still breastfeeding her nine month old son.

"I spent two years with my parents before I was captured again. It was a different group. This time I was always with them at night as their wife. I escaped and walked through the bush for one week to return to my village. I only had water, and even the water wasn't pure, but I needed it to stay alive.

"When I first returned from the war, I wasn't at school, but with the help of Save the Children, I went to workshops, and saw other children doing training.. My village is one of the remote villages in this area, so if I was lucky enough to get the training, I would like to stay here to help other girls. I would like to learn hairdressing."

"I'm joining the Children's Club run by Save the Children so we can work together to help our community. We don't have water or toilets here, and we don't even have proper shelter to live in. So we'll come together and help each other to help organisations promote our community."

Child Protection Committee

Save the Children has set up a Child Protection Committee that works in Hawa's and other villages. Mohamed Sannoh, Save the Children Progamme Worker:

"We have a Child Protection Committee here. It encourages communities and families to send their children to school, particularly girls. When we come to the village, we go to the school and ask the teacher how many pupils have been enrolled. When we started, the number of children in this school was 120. Now there are 206, not only from this village, but from nearby villages, and we have more girls.

"The Committee also monitors the borders. Before, children were going to Liberia alone. Families were asking their children to do business, to sell. So now nobody is allowed to send his or her daughter alone to Liberia.

"When we came, we tried to find out what led to children being recruited by militia groups from this community. W e found that many children were abducted because they lived on farms close to the border with Liberia, or while they were fishing in the streams close to the border, or out hunting with dogs. Some were abducted when their families asked them to go across to Liberia to find food. So, while the war was still going on in Liberia, we worked with the Committee to ensure that children didn't go to the border areas.

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