AYV News, June 2, 2023

One hundred and seventy staff of the Human Rights Commission for Sierra Leone (HRC-SL) have completed intense training on Human Rights and Election Monitoring.

The training, financed by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, is in preparation for the forthcoming elections.

Its rationale was to build advocacy and identify skills to monitor human rights issues during the elections and to further ensure that staff of the Commission are able to identify their roles so that they can be able to mitigate violence during elections.

It will also help the Commission to positively influence the entirety of the citizenry in the process.

Vice-Chairman of HRC-SL, Victor Idrissa Lansana emphasized the role of the Commission in moments like these. He particularly noted the promotion responsibility of the Commission which includes the monitoring of human rights violations, documentation of same and taking the necessary measures to addressing those violations.

“We are three weeks away to the June 24th elections and it is very pertinent for us to be really central in the process. As an independent institution, we have the obligation to ensure that we put out very credible information about the elections. We had already started monitoring the electioneering process well before now,” he said.

He alluded to the fact that it was important for staff to understand the dos and don’ts of the electioneering process and the ethics to incorporate them when going out to the field to monitor so that the Commission can put out a credible report that will indicate the Commission’s informed position on the elections.