Untitled Document

FOOD FOR PROTECTION

Name: Agnes

Aged: 18

Born: Sierra Leone

After Sierrra Leone's war ended, Agnes, aged 18, had to leave her home on the outskirts of Freetown.

“My home was bombed in the war and my parents could no longer support me.”

She has now been working as a prostitute for two years. “I’m really scared about infections and I always make the men wear a condom, even if they offer to raise the price,” she says.

Safe sex is imperative in Sierra Leone. In Freetown, infection rates are about six percent, according to a 2002 study by the US Center for Disease Control. But, says Neff Walker at UNAIDS, no one really knows.

Agnes learnt by attending a project for sexually abused women and prostitutes run by an Irish non-governmental organisation GOAL.

“ Most of the girls live in poverty,” says Heidi Zwick, the project coordinator, many were abducted by rebels and forced to have sex in army camps. When they come back, they are stigmatised in their own communities.”

A free meal, provided by WFP, encourages Agnes to visit the centre where she learns about sexual health, parenting and pregnancy.

FOOD FOR PROTECTION

Press Pack

Press Release

Global Hunger Factsheet

Washington Post Editorial

WFP IN SIERRA LEONE

WFP is using food aid to help rebuild war-shattered Sierra Leone's social infrastructure, targeting some 384,500 people, of whom 223,010 are women.

At demobilisation camps, where some 14,840 weapons have been collected from former rebel fighters, WFP has supported all the ex-soldiers' food needs.
Food-for-training programmes have given the unemployed, the wounded and women the chance to learn new skills from blacksmithing and soap-making to bread baking and shoe manufacturing.

But the fight against hunger in post-war Sierra Leone must go hand in hand with the wider war against HIV/AIDS.

Both weaken the immune system. Both can send a family spiralling into destitution in the desperate effort to buy either medicine or food.

Over a decade of civil war, which has displaced tens of thousands of people, has helped spread HIV/AIDS throughout Sierra Leone.

In January 2002, president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah officially declared Sierra Leone's "war don don" or the war finally over, but peace has brought no relief.

Instead close living conditions, destitution and poor health conditions prevalent in IDP and refugee camps have exacerbated Sierra Leone's high infection rate.

The national economy has worsened the crisis.

"Resources like mines and diamonds create a mobile population of workers, which in turn promotes more sex workers, causing AIDS to spread faster," says Neff Walker at UNAIDS.

To combat the disease, WFP's Sierra Leone operation now includes HIV/AIDS awareness in all its activities.

SIERRA LEONE COUNTRY BRIEF
For up-to-date information on WFP operations in Sierra Leone, useful contacts, facts & figures, history of food aid, click here

WFP FOOD AID AND HIV/AIDS

HIV/AIDS and hunger are two sides of the same deadly sword

Without good nutrition, the infected are robbed of one of the defences against AIDS-related illnesses and early death

At the same time, hunger often forces people to engage in high-risk survival strategies, such as sex work, which in turn exposes them to HIV
Food aid is essential in the fight against HIV/AIDS

Ensuring that HIV/AIDS sufferers living in hunger-afflicted regions receive food assistance is one of WFP's main priorities
WFP attempts to lessen the effects of HIV/AIDS on a community in a number of ways, mainly by improving food security for those affected by the illness
Food aid can prolong the lives of HIV/AIDS sufferers. It also allows them to continue to earn income and feed their families
Many children who live in households in which a family member is infected with HIV/AIDS are forced to leave school because the family can no longer afford the school fees or children are needed to help earn income

Free school lunches and take-home rations can help keep the child at school