AWE Media Sierra Leone

By: Alusine Rehme Wilson The high rate of illegal timber logging in Sierra Leone is not only the root cause for massive deforestation but also a prime factor for child labor and efforts to curtail it has been a daunting task for successive governments. Since 2007 trucks, trailers and other heavy duty vehicles flock villages and towns in the northern districts of Sierra Leone to transport logged timbers to the port of the country’s capital Freetown and some smuggled to neighboring countries. These are mostly illegally logged timbers sourced from a number of remote villages. Conversely, both Koinadugu and Falaba district in the northern part of Sierra Leone recently take center stage of such illegal activity. This has exposed both promoters and laborers involved in the trade to a number of casualties and letting children abandoned school for what they refer to as “the fast cash earning trade.” The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Recommendation 466 states that, “Effective monito...