Prosecution
The Government of Sierra Leone made modest law enforcement efforts to combat trafficking in the last year. Legislatively, Sierra Leone prohibits all forms of trafficking through its 2005 Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act, which prescribes a maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment. This penalty is stringent, but not commensurate with penalties for rape, which carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Between January and December 2007, the government reported that it conducted 14 trafficking investigations. Five of these cases are being prosecuted—as compared with seven cases prosecuted in 2006. Although an international NGO reported that Sierra Leone convicted three traffickers, the government was unable to corroborate this information. In January 2008, the Sierra Leonean Embassy in Conakry received from the Guinean government four Sierra Leonean women whom Guinean authorities suspected of trafficking children to Sierra Leone, and transported them back to Sierra Leone. Rather than prosecuting them, the government and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) determined that the women were actually trafficking victims and returned them to their communities.
Read more about this topic: Human Trafficking In Sierra Leone
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