child soldiers

Children as young as 7 years old were made child combatants (commonly known as child soldiers) while women and girls were raped and forcibly taken away to be wives and sex slaves of the fighting forces.

“When they got to my house, the fighters captured me and took me to General Oliver Varney, who was now in command of Tubmanburg. I was only seven and a half years old, and I was afraid of what would happen.

Because I was small and could not hold a gun, I lived with the general and his ‘war wife.’ After two years, I became a personal bodyguard for my ‘new’ father and boss, Gen. Varney. I traveled with him on the front lines and began to learn how to clean and load an AK-47 and other weapons that he used.

Although I was only a girl, I quickly became very powerful. It was my job to decide who could see my boss or who could not.

My boss heard about a place in Nimba county where ‘protective charms’ could be obtained so that bullets would not harm us. We traveled to Nimba county for this special protection called ‘zaygay.’ After many days of rituals, my boss got a ‘special’ cloth vest. Both of us left with other charms as well, confident that we would not die.”