The Sierra Leonean Girl Whose Rape Led To Change in Country’s Sexual Violence Law Has Died: This Is Wyuyata’s Story

Image Source: BBC / Reuters

The 5-year-old rape survivor whose story sparked national outrage in 2019, that led Sierra Leone to change its sexual violence laws has died. Wyuyata Konneh died in Bo on Sunday 23 January 2022. She was nine years old.

At the 2021 UN General Assembly, President Maada Bio moved for a UN Resolution on survivors of sexual violence. He promised “absolute commitment” to survivors.

Wyuyata’s death shows that child rape survivors need long term safeguarding and protection. 

I first met Wyuyata at the fistula ward at Aberdeen Women’s Center(AWC) in October 2018. I had gone there to meet with the Scottish philanthropist who has financed the clinic for over a decade. She was in a meeting when I arrived so she asked one of the doctors to show me around.

That’s when I saw Wyuyata, a frail brown skin girl, with thick long cornrows. Her legs were so small they dangled. She was in a wheelchair. I asked who she was visiting in the fistula ward (a fistula is usually caused by obstructed childbirth). That’s when I learned that she was a fistula patient. She had been raped and sodomized and as a result, had a golf-sized tear at the bottom of her vertebrae. It had left her paralyzed. The doctor said Wyuyata was going to need long term medical care and support. Her rapist had not been reported or charged. 

 L is 5 years old. She is sitting in a wheelchair at the fistula ward at the Aberdeen Women’s Center. Her legs are so tiny they have to be strapped so they don’t dangle.

She is paralyzed from the waist down but she wasn’t born this way. L has a fistula because she was raped. She was sodomized. The rape was so violent it tore the tissue and muscle between her vagina and her anus. After she was raped she was thrown down a flight of stairs. The fall caused a spinal injury, leaving behind a golf-sized hole on the base of her back.

Instead of reporting to the police her mother, sent L to a village with her grandmother. Suffering from incontinence she was eventually brought back to Freetown. One day she arrived in a taxi at the Aberdeen Women’s Center which is where she is today receiving care.

Her mother did not come with her. Her mother has not come to visit her. Her mother did not report the incident to the police. When her grandmother did come to see L, she said that she fell.

The doctors at the centre upon examination found that W had been sodomized. No fall causes that kind of damage to a person’s body. L was raped.

When I left AWC, I was devastated. To process how there could be so much silence around the rape of a five-year-old girl, I wrote a blog. I referred to her as L to protect her Identity.  The blog was shared over 200 times on Facebook and downloaded and distributed in Whatsapp groups. The story made national headlines. L.A.W.Y.E.R.S. brought the matter to the police to seek justice for the victim. 

In December 2018,  Asmaa James launched the Black Tuesday Campaign to raise awareness about child rape. The First Lady launched her flagship Hands Off Our Girls Campaign. 

Four months after I broke Wyuyata’s story, President Julius Maada Bio announced a national emergency on rape acknowledging for the first time that gender-based sexual violence was a “scourge” on the nation. 

By July, parliament debated amendments to the Sexual Offenses Act to increase the sentences for those who raped children and other victims of sexual violence. 

While the government focused on changing the law, Wyuyata remained at the Aberdeen Women’s Center where well-wishers would pay her visits. It became a media fiasco. 

One person who took a long term interest in Wyuyata’s wellbeing was Asmaa James. She became an advocate for Wyuyata’s care and mobilized resources on her behalf. In August 2019, President Bio financed Wyuyata’s medical trip to India. She was to have a couple of surgeries and physical therapy to increase her mobility. 

The Sexual Offence Act 2019 passed in September. It mandated a minimum 15-year sentence for rape convictions and up to life in prison for child rapists. The government also promised to enhance psychosocial support and protection for victims of sexual violence. They set up a Sexual Offences Model Court in July 2020 to expedite prosecutions. 

A month earlier another 5-year-old Kadijah Saccoh was allegedly raped and killed. The Rainbo Centre a one-stop for psychosocial support for victims of rape reported 3548 cases at their five centres in 2020, 600 more cases than in 2018.  Half of all victims are girls 12 and younger. 

When Khadijah’s story broke a coalition of Sierra Leonean advocates and organizations led by Asmaa James, Purposeful, and diaspora-based celebrities like Idris Elba, and former CNN anchor Isha Sesay launched a Survivor’s Solidarity Fund to raise money for victims of sexual gender-based violence. Since its inception, the fund has raised $109,000 distributed to four organizations supporting rape victims.

By the time Wyuyata and her mother had returned home, Sierra Leone was grappling with the coronavirus pandemic. She was however in better shape but still in need of care. In Freetown, Asmaa said she continued to check on Wyuyata until her mother decided to move her back to their hometown Bo, three hours from the capital city. Asmaa says she questioned the decision to move Wyuyata away but not being the legal guardian had no say. 

She lost touch with the family, although she exchanged phone calls with Wyuyata from time to time. Because Wyuyata’s story had been so widespread she had become the breadwinner thanks to one foreign-based benefactor. In Bo, Wyuyata would have been away from the doctors and quality healthcare at the Aberdeen Women’s Center where she had been treated for free for months until she left for India. 

Wyuyata suffered complications from her wounds. On Sunday, Wyuyata’s mother reported that the child had died. She was buried the same day.

I am devastated.

As a journalist, I try to document stories to make a record of Sierra Leonean life but also to use my platform to amplify issues that affect people in need. I know progress has been made but with Wyuyata’s passing, I question whether telling her story was in her best interest? If with all of our voices and campaigns we lose sight of the victims what is the value of our advocacy? 

Justice was only one part of what Wyuyata needed. She also needed protection, perhaps from members of her own family. At a minimum, a social worker should have been assigned to monitor her progress. Anyone who got the details of her story from the beginning would have known that home with her mother was not in her best interest.

So much has been said about the strides made to fight against sexual violence but when it comes to safeguarding survivors especially children there is no system for social protection. Survivors are left to depend on the kindness of strangers. For Wyuyata, that wasn’t enough.