As of 1999, there were 1 million internally displaced refugees in Sierra Leone.  Sierra Leone suffers from war, internal war, massacres, ethnic cleansing and prostitution.  The degradation of woman and children is especially severe, and they are the weapons of war.  Women were at constant risk of being raped, and the children are being raped, as well, especially the female abductees, and the others are forced to carry military equipment and looted goods.  The RUF specifically targets children for recruitment as child soldiers, forced labor, and victims of sexual exploitation (African Division of Human Rights Watch, 2003).   The Kamajors do most of the front line fighting for the government.  After the RUF attacks a village, they abduct the surviving children.  The children, many of whom have seen their parents slaughtered, are then removed to special camps.  Those children who escape often join the Kamajors who give them shelter and food.  All of this for some Diamonds! 

According to (www. rnw.nl/humanrights/html/childsoldiers.html, 2000) official estimates, 5,400 children fought in Sierra Leone’s civil war, but UNICEF stresses that these numbers are only estimates.  A local group called Children Affected by War believes that the number is closer to 10,000 children.  One rebel group admitted that 30% of their fighters in late 1999 were of children.  For these children, the war became a struggle for individual survival.  If they couldn’t fight, they were used as slaves.  “After surveying victims from all areas of Sierra Leone it: concluded that sexual crimes were used to try to destroy family links, making soldiers less reluctant to take part in military operations” (http://www.prisonplanet.com/news_alert_011703_unsextrade.html.  
Not only are the RUF committing sex crimes, there is evidence that troops from the regional intervention force, Ecomog and the UN peacekeeping mission were committing these sexual atrocities against women and children simultaneously.  Rape may not be as visible as the severe mutilations that have taken place in Sierra Leone, but it is just as debilitating.