Sierra Leone’s decade-long conflict of the 1990s and onward was marked by an extraordinary level of brutal human rights abuses, including summary killings, sexual violence against women and girls, abductions, amputations, and the use of child soldiers.
The combined effects of prolonged conflict, pervasive human rights abuses, and massive forced migration in one of the poorest countries in the world, devastated the health and well-being of the Sierra Leonean people. The daunting process of rebuilding and reconciliation in the aftermath of such destruction requires the establishment of an accurate account of the nature and extent of abuses that were committed.