The community engagement assembled representative from the Family Support Unit FSU, Tribal Heads, Religious Leaders, community stakeholders as well as cross section of family members across the community.
DLPC 9226 at the Adonkia Police Station represented the FSU Mohamed Momoh Massaquoi described gender base violence as a behavior of someone intended to hurt or kill another person, especially from the opposing sex.
He went on to say that violence might be inflicted by either male or female, he stated that there are two types of violence direct and indirect; he described direct gender base violence as physical, such as sexual penetration or rape, whereas indirect gender base to psychological and economical, he added that their department handled domestic and gender base violence with gravity and that they had no room for compromising.
‘’as soon as we received the necessary evidence to prosecute a case, we immediately charged to court we do not care if you are relatives or couples’’ Mohamed stated.
He encourages all Sierra Leonean to report any gender base violence act and advised the people who are involved in such act to discontinue.
‘’ I dump my previous husband because of domestic violence. He always abused and battered me, whenever that happened I reported the matter to my parent or his parent. Our parent always cautioned and entreated me to be patient and obey whatever my previous husband said. I eventually became frustrated over his continuous domestic violence and abused, and then I chose to run out his house in order to save my life. That decision happened to be the best decision in life, today I’m happily married and living like a queen with my current husband’’. Theresa Kamara one of the participants in the sensitization said.
Mohamed Kamara, a pupil participating under the representation of the UMS Community School during the community engagement stated that the issue of child labour was alarming in the Adonkia community he said
‘’ my parent treats me well, but some parents and guardians around our neighborhood are in the act of giving their children cold water to sell, before they actually goes to school and most of these children are in their tender age’’ he asserted.
As he promised to put an end to child labour in his community by reporting to the police any child labour activities he noticed.