Sexual Abuse Survivors and the Complex of Traditional Healing

The international aid community has in their efforts to aid post-conflict communities in Africa actively promoted projects catering for the psycho-social healing of people traumatized during wars and violent conflict. To a large degree these projects have been established in the tradition of Western psychology. However a more recent realization has been that in order to efficiently help survivors of war it is necessary to adapt projects that enhance “local” psycho-social healing.

This policy report locates the structures—that have local legitimacy—which are available to young sexual abuse survivors in the Sierra Leone civil war (1991-2002). To this end, the book discusses a healing complex that comprises a number of overlapping actors, including herbalists, Zoe Mammies (heads of the female secret societies), Mori-men (Muslim healers); Karamokos (Muslim teachers), and Christian pastors.

Mats Utas holds a PhD in Anthropology and has worked on child soldiers in Liberia, and more recently on street corner youth in Sierra Leone. He has also written on social navigation of young women in the Liberian civil war. He is currently a researcher at the Nordic Africa Institute.