Violent Memories Still Haunt War Orphans

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Today Sierra Leone is at peace and Theresa is living with an auntin Koindu, a town in southeastern Sierra Leone that was a majorrebel stronghold during the civil war.
She has a two year-old child, but does not know who the father is,because she has had many sexual partners since returning home.
She said her life has rarely felt like it was worth living. "I feellike I have no purpose, like there is no meaning to it," she said."I have no idea who the child's father is. I have to struggle justto get clothes for us. I beg to eat."
Alice Behrendt, who has studied the suicide risk of children inTogo, Burkina Faso, Liberia and Sierra Leone for thenon-governmental organisation Plan International, said Theresa'ssense of hopelessness is common among war orphans, and evenchildren who did not lose their parents during the war.
High suicide risk
"Of all the countries I have studied, by far the most dramaticsuicide rate was in Sierra Leone," she said.
In Koindu, of the 180 children surveyed by Behrendt - 90 orphansand 90 other children - 59 percent had witnessed a suicide, and 70percent had considered or attempted suicide themselves.
Among the orphans, only eight (out of 90) were not deemed a suiciderisk.
"It's not just the orphans who are at risk, because many childrenwho did not lose their parents are living in environments wherethey are abused or which are violent in some way," Behrendt said.
"The main difference for the orphans is that they generally haveless self-esteem, lower social skills and more depression. Thereare more signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, more bedwettingand conduct problems."
Female orphans were also likely to be involved in transactional sexshe said. Fifty percent of the teenage girls interviewed by PlanInternational had got pregnant at some point and many had sexuallytransmitted diseases. "The girls prostitute themselves to survive.Some do it to pay their school fees."
Communities are well aware of the problem, Behrendt says. However,local solutions have little in common with Western-stylecounselling and support mechanisms. Anyone found attempting suicideis punished either with a beating, or even by being taken to thepolice.
Lawrence James trained as a counsellor with a different NGO thatused to work in Koindu; currently he receives funding from PlanInternational to visit suicidal orphans.
Breakdown of social relations
He blames the breakdown of social relations during the war for thetotal lack of support for the orphans. "People have lost theircultural values and their sense of community," he said.
In a town where most people still live in burned out shells ofruined buildings with torn plastic and dry leaves as roofing, thereis not enough to go around families, let alone to share withorphans.
"Poverty is the order of the day here," he said. "Families justcan't cope with taking in another child - they want to focus ontheir own and themselves."
James and two colleagues, Fatmata Bah and Mustapha Abdulai, work atimproving relationships between orphans and their carers when theyhave them, and Plan International sometimes subsidises school feesso children can go to school.
Probing how children feel
The three counsellors also focus on helping the children build upthe mental toughness to put their violent pasts behind them. Someof the children not only lost their parents in the war, but sawthem killed, or were even forced to kill them themselves.
Often the counsellors are the first to probe how the children feelabout what happened to them and those around them during the war.For the first week of treatment, the children usually just crywithout talking.
Just getting them to speak about what happened to them is thereforeseen as a victory.
But while family mediation and support can help, James says thegood the counsellors can do is limited by the lack of economicopportunities or hope of a better life for the children.
Behrendt, the project manager, said as far as Plan Internationalwas concerned Koindu was just the beginning. The next step was towiden the catchment area to include children in more parts ofSierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
"There really is a story on every corner here," she said."Sometimes it feels like the towns are full of children that needhelp."