This letter is written on behalf of the Bo City Survivor, in her voice, to faithfully convey her pain, her experience, and her plea for justice after four years of delay in her case.
Dear Honorable Chief Justice Kamanda,
Today is 4 May 2026.
I am a citizen of Sierra Leone. My name is not the point of this letter.
Four years ago, on this exact date, I was gang-raped in Bo City. I was 16 years old.
I survived that day physically. But I cannot say I did mentally.
What I did not know then and what no child should ever have to learn is that surviving that attack would be only the beginning. That I would spend the next four years surviving your justice system.
Four years, Hon. Justice.
Four years of waiting for you to do your job.
What Four Years of “Justice” Have Looked Like
My family and I have done everything we were supposed to do.
We reported the crime immediately. We cooperated with the police. We showed up to court every single time we were summoned. We respected the process even when the process showed us no respect. We returned each time we were told the case was adjourned—and we have been told that more times than I can count.
Each time, we met the same response:
Adjournment.
Delay.
Lost files.
Absent State counsel.
Silence of the people.
Meanwhile, the men who held me down and violated me have walked freely in my community for 1,460 days.
They have lived their lives.
I have lived in suspended animation, waiting for the judiciary of Sierra Leone—your judiciary—to decide that my life matters enough to deliver a verdict.
If I Were Your Daughter
My Lord Chief Justice, I am writing to you because you are not just another official. You are the head of the judiciary. The Constitution places the responsibility for justice in this country in your hands.
So let me ask you something directly, as one human being to another:
If I were your daughter, would you accept this delay?
- If I were your daughter, would you tell me to keep waiting while the men who raped me walk free?
- If I were your daughter, would you tell me that four years of adjournment is normal?
- If I were your daughter, would you tell me that my trauma is not urgent?
- If I were your daughter, would you tell me that the court has no answer for me except “come back next time”?
- If I were your daughter, would you look me in the eye and call this process justice?
Because I am somebody’s daughter too.
My parents have watched me suffer for four years—first from what those men did to me, and then from what your courts have refused to do for me.
They are devastated.
I am devastated.
And I want to know: Why has my life been treated as if it can be placed on hold indefinitely?
The Law You Are Sworn to Uphold
The Constitution of Sierra Leone guarantees me the protection of the law under Section 15.
It guarantees me a fair hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial court under Section 23.
It prohibits discrimination under Section 27.
Those rights are not decorative. They are not reserved for the powerful. They are for girls like me, too.
But where has that protection been?
Where has that reasonable time been?
Where has that equality been?
Honorable Justice Kamanda, I was a child when this assault happened to me.
What kind of justice system allows a child victim of gang rape to wait four years and still receive no conclusion?
What kind of court forces a child and her devastated family to keep showing up—only to send them away, again and again, with nothing?
What kind of message does that send to other girls in Sierra Leone who are deciding whether to report sexual violence?
Does it tell them the law will protect them?
Or does it tell them that even if they find the courage to speak, they will spend years being ignored, dismissed, and abandoned by the very system that claims to serve justice?
The Law Says Justice Must Be Timely. So Where Is My Timely Justice?
The Criminal Procedure Act 2024 speaks repeatedly of timeliness, structure, and proper judicial process. It requires that arrested people be brought before the court within set periods. It sets timelines for criminal proceedings, committal decisions, and case management.
The law clearly recognizes that justice cannot drift forever.
Yet in my case, four years have passed.
Four. Years.
So, I ask you, Honorable Chief Justice Kamanda: If the law values timeliness, why has my case been allowed to remain in limbo?
The Sexual Offences Act was supposed to mean that Sierra Leone takes sexual violence seriously. It was supposed to mean that girls like me matter. It was supposed to mean that the judiciary understands the trauma of sexual violence and responds with care, with urgency, with seriousness.
But what is the value of those promises if my case sits unresolved year after year while the accused men walk free?
What is the value of a law that exists only on paper?
Questions Only You, Justice Kamanda, Can Answer
Honorable Chief Justice, there are questions that only you, as the head of the judiciary, can answer. And today, I am asking them:
- Why has my case taken four years without justice?
- Who is responsible for these repeated delays?
- How many adjournments does it take before delay becomes a denial of justice?
- What steps, if any, have you taken to ensure that cases involving sexual violence against children are not buried under endless adjournments?
- What accountability exists within the judiciary when a victim’s case is allowed to drag on for years?
- Who speaks for the victim when the court itself becomes part of her suffering?
- What am I supposed to believe about justice in Sierra Leone after four years of this?
- What would you say to me if I were standing before you today, asking why your judiciary has failed me?
And again, I ask: If I were your daughter, would you still be comfortable with this silence and extensive delay?
This Is Not Only About Delay. This Is About What Delay Has Done to Me and My Family.
Honorable Justice, every adjournment has reopened my wounds.
Every court appearance has forced me to relive the worst day of my life.
Every postponement has told me that you think my pain can wait.
Every month that has passed has reinforced the message that what happened to me mattered less than the convenience of your system.
I was 16 when they raped me.
I am now 20 years old living with the physical and mental trauma.
I have spent nearly a quarter of my life waiting for the judiciary of Sierra Leone to care about me.
- Do you understand what that does to a person?
- Do you understand what it means to carry trauma while the institution that is supposed to deliver closure keeps telling you to wait?
- Do you understand what it means to see your rapists walking freely, living their lives, while you are trapped in an endless cycle of court dates that lead nowhere?
No victim should have to beg the courts to care.
No child should have to grow into adulthood while her case remains frozen in uncertainty.
No family should have to spend four years obeying the justice system only to receive no justice from it.
This Judicial Failure Is Not Small. It Is a Violation of My Rights.
Honorable Justice Kamanda, this delay is not a bureaucratic inconvenience.
This is not a technical delay.
This is not harmless.
This is a violation of my constitutional right to the protection of the law.
This is a violation of my right to justice within a reasonable time.
This is a betrayal of the duty the judiciary owes to victims, especially child victims.
This is a failure of such magnitude that it should trouble your conscience.
It should trouble the conscience of every judge in Sierra Leone.
It should trouble the conscience of this nation.
What I Demand
So today, on the fourth anniversary of the assault that stole my childhood and shattered my life, I am not writing to ask for pity.
I am not writing to beg.
I am writing to demand what should never have been withheld from me in the first place.
I demand justice.
I demand that my case be brought to a conclusion immediately, without further unnecessary delay.
I demand accountability for the years of adjournments that have denied me closure and dignity.
I demand that the judiciary explain, publicly and transparently, why a child victim of gang rape has been left waiting for four years while the accused remain free.
I demand that you, as Chief Justice, take personal responsibility for what is happening under your watch.
I demand that you demonstrate that the judiciary you lead values the lives and rights of victims as much as it values procedure.
And I demand that no other girl in Sierra Leone be forced to endure this same cruelty from the very institution that is supposed to protect her.
The Only Question That Remains
Hon. Chief Justice Kamanda, the law is not only judged by the words written in statutes and constitutions.
It is judged by what happens to real people.
And what has happened to me is this:
- I was violated by grown men when I was a child.
- Then I was abandoned by your courts.
- Four years is too long.
Four years is already an answer.
It tells me that justice delayed has become justice denied.
The question now is whether you will allow this denial to continue.
Will you see this letter as coming from someone who deserves justice, or as just another file to be lost?
The question is whether the judiciary of Sierra Leone serves the people or simply exists to serve the powerful.
Honorable Justice Kamanda, I am still waiting.
My family is still waiting.
And every girl in Sierra Leone who has ever been violated is watching to see what you will do.
Will you deliver justice? Or will you deliver another adjournment?
The answer you give will define your legacy.
Sincerely,
A Devastated Victim Still Waiting for Justice
In the Bo High Court, Sierra Leone
4 May 2026
This open letter is being published in the interest of justice and accountability. The survivor’s identity is protected. Please share this letter widely, including to the following on social media:
- Sierra Leone Judiciary
- The Minister of Justice
- The Attorney General
- The Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone
- UN Women Sierra Leone
- International human rights organizations
- Media outlets
MAMA SALONE ~ Lioness of the West Coast 