Supporting vulnerable persons and communities to achieve social justice through advocacy and empowerment programs.

over half of Sierra Leone’s population is under the age of 18. child protection issues and children’s rights are thus of huge concern in the small West African country.

children and young people face challenging social and economic problems daily and are left vulnerable to neglect, abuse, and exploitation in the form of child labour, child trafficking and indecent work.

According to data collected by GOAL, over 45%   children aged 5 -17 are said tobe engaged in child labour, with over 20% involved in dangerous work.

The worst form of child labour, that of indecent work and child exploitation, is particularly common in major towns and cities such a Freetown and Kenema. Child trafficking is frequent and serious in Sierra Leone and the country is atransit point for further child trafficking movements beyond Sierra Leone. range of international children’s rights policies have been adopted and endorsed and domesticated by the country’s legislators, but studies have concluded that the child protection system in Sierra Leone is relatively weak,

under-resourced, donor-dependent, and lacking coordination. The failure of the system to effectively monitor and prosecute perpetrators is seen to be a major driving factor in the prevalence of child protection issues. in 2019 the government through the office of the president instituted a state of national emergency on rape and sexual penetration of children. this was later  turned into law to allow the government and other actors to bring charges and secure convictions for all forms of sexual offences. before the enactment of the

abovementioned law, the country’s first lady had championed similar campaign which brought together all first ladies around the sub-region in match pass to mark the official launch of her “hands of our girls” campaign there has been tremendously increased in the number of convictions secured since the launch of these two campaigns. There still remain major challenges in
achieving the goal of eradicating this scourge as many parents of victims still can’t find the courage to come forth and make reports. communities still rely on compromises and other forms of community settlement using religious leaders