Acknowledgement:

The child-friendly version of our Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report for Sierra Leone is unprecedented. No truth commission in the past has produced such a report. This report is ground breaking in other respects, including the participation of representatives of children’s groups in its content, language and design. The Commission hopes that it will be widely distributed, both in Sierra Leone and in other countries.

Children first charged the Commission to prepare a child-friendly report so that the children of Sierra Leone would be able to read and understand it, and others outside Sierra Leone might better comprehend what the children of Sierra Leone experienced during the war. This report is a response to that charge. The Commission deeply thanks all the children of Sierra Leone who have participated in our processes, either individually or through their respective organizations. These stories and experiences are shared with the wider community in the hope that, through united action, other children might be spared the horrors of war. This report could not have been written without the support of UNICEF. In addition to helping arrange for the participation of the children of Sierra Leone in the Commission’s processes, UNICEF provided for the design and printing of the childfriendly version of the Commission’s Report.

The Commission acknowledges the tremendous efforts of a number of people and organizations in producing this report. Saudamini Siegrist, a project officer for UNICEF, was inspirational in mobilizing the human resources needed to compile the report on behalf of the Commission. She worked tirelessly, together with Bert Theuermann, the Child Protection Adviser at the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL), and in close collaboration with the Children’s Forum Network and the Voice of Children Radio at UNAMSIL. Special thanks go to Miranda Sawyerr for her assistance, together with children from the Children’s Forum Network, in the design of the Report. The Commission also thanks all the members of its research department, and Messrs. Ozonnia Ojielo and Howard Varney for their dedication and contribution in producing the child-friendly version of the Commission’s Report.

The Commission takes primary responsibility for the contents of the report. While it is addressed mostly to children, the Commission wholeheartedly commends it to all Sierra Leoneans and to members of the world community.