She Is a Child Not a Prop: Urgent Concern Over Fatima Bio’s Reckless Use of Her 10-Year-Old on Global Fame & Wealth Seeking Tours

by Fatima Babih, EdD

There comes a point when politics must give way to something higher, the protection of a child.

For weeks now, Sierra Leoneans have watched in confusion and growing discomfort as Fatima Jabbie Bio repeatedly parades her 10-year-old daughter on red carpet into chartered private airplanes across international borders on what are clearly political and financial ventures, not family vacations.

We all saw the smiling airport photos during the summer holidays, and we all brushed it off as a mother traveling with her daughter during school break.

But this is late October, and we continue to see the little girl matching on red carpet into chartered private planes. Meanwhile, every school-aged child everywhere in the world is in school; except Fatima Bio’s 10-year-old daughter, who is being dragged through private jet airports almost bi-weekly, appearing in every staged diplomatic and fundraising photo-op, instead of sitting in a classroom where she belongs.

This is no longer “motherhood” this is exploitation typical of Fatima Bio.

• Fatima and Julius Maada Bio are the most traveled presidential couple in the world.
• The two are never in Sierra Leone for more than 2 weeks at a time since 2018.
• The couple never fly on commercial airlines, always on chartered private jets, costing the nation tens of thousands of dollars per trip.
• Each of them travels with separate entourages, all of whom are paid FULL per diem and travel allowances by the government of Sierra Leone.
• Fatima Bio’s entourage is overwhelmingly made up of her adult children, her siblings, cousins, Gambian relatives, and friends who are all placed on government payroll.

That alone is a massive economic burden on the famished nation.

But now she has added her 10-year-old child into this money-making machinery. Here is why. The more “family members” Fatima Bio claims on her travel manifest, the more taxpayer money she collects for each trip.

So, what we see on that red carpet weekly is not maternal closeness. It is financial exploitation of a child, under the false cover of family travel.

Where is child safety in all of this?

• Why is a 10-year-old missing structured education for airport red carpets?
• Why is she being exposed so often to cameras, flashing lights at an age where her brain is still wiring itself for emotional safety and stability?
• Why are we normalizing jet lag, hotel-hopping and adult political environments for a 10-year-old child?
• Considering that this child was born in the UK, should the child protective services in that country be alerted to this child endangerment?
• At what point does international child endangerment become a legal and moral issue?
• At what point do we admit that this child is being exposed to slow physical and psychological harm?

This is the same Fatima Bio who founded the Hands Off Our Girls scam she has been running in Sierra Leone, through which she has been exploiting vulnerable stories of the country’s disadvantaged girls and women for her personal profit. She is now doing the same in her international travel scam. Only this time, the girl is her own daughter.

We are pleading to every conscience that is still awake and not clouded by politics, to every reasonable person who has not yet traded morality for fear or blind support to agree that,

• A 10-year-old child should not be a mother’s ATM machine.
• A school-aged child should not be her mother’s political prop.
• An innocent 10-year-old child deserves schooling, routine, safety, privacy, not private jets, per diem, and staged camera hugs.

If Fatima Bio truly wants Sierra Leoneans to believe she is empowering children, let her prove it by starting with her own child; keep her in school and stop making her a member of her travel circus.

#KeepHerInSchool