Ana Rodrigo
Madrid, 29 nov (EFE) .- Mariatu knew at age 12 how it felt to lose both hands and his family, to become a mother after rape and looking to the ground while begging to survive.
From one day to another, changed the lives of this girl who lived a quiet life in a small village in Sierra Leone, surrounded by relatives and friends, and outside civil war that lasted over ten years (1991 to 2002), in which rebel Revolutionary United Front (FRU) destroyed villages and farms, raping, maiming and killing thousands of people.
With the innocent eyes of that girl in the book "The Long Journey of Mariatu Kamara (Oxfam) tells the brutal war that lived this southwestern African country, currently located in the list of poorest world, where life expectancy is 40 years and most children still do not attend school.
Mariatu Kamara is now 22, lives in Canada, where he is studying, and has created Mariatu Foundation to help other victims of armed conflict.
"My friends and my family," Mohamed, Adamsay or Marie, who share the limelight with her in the book are still living in villages in Sierra Leone, for some it has changed the situation somewhat, but for most it remains very bad, "said Mariatu, in an interview with Efe.
The war ended and the country ceased to be a priority for the international community, therefore Mariatu want to keep showing the world the needs of its people.
"With the book, I will not ask for anything specific, but I think they should provide more help to Sierra Leone. I want to give voice to the voiceless and making visible and understanding all the stories that take place in the world to open eyes and ears of the people, so you can do something, "he says Mariatu.
NGOs report that many women live under a permanent regime of sexual abuse, physical and emotional, largely as a result of extreme poverty and unemployment, and in the case of children is the fact that often suffer rape by older men and forced marriages.
"I do not know what the situation of women, I'm not married yet. In Sierra Leone, basically what happens is that man is the head of the house and make all decisions regarding the family, "said Mariatu when asked by this question.
Named UNICEF Special Representative Children in armed conflict, Mariatu, who lived for ten years in Toronto (Canada), is touring Europe again and again telling her story, which unfortunately is the thousands of children in Sierra Leone.
Resta importance to meeting he held in Toronto with a child soldier, Ishmael Beah had written another book, but from the other front, from the side in which stood the soldiers who cut off the hands of machete.
"The meeting went well, understand one thing: that these children were also victims and were forced by adults to do those things, and knowing this, when I meet one of them, I have no type problem. "
A Mariatu you the opportunity arose to leave the African continent and to break with her "hard history" and took it. He could even talk to the president of Sierra Leone.
"After the war, when I went to see the president, said that they had not fulfilled the promises they had made-help and financial education to the needy, "so I asked him to fulfill the effort," said the girl, who received the President's response that "would do whatever I could."
The Foundation wants create "an institution for imparting training in different skills so that the people there to learn and acquire skills."
It plans to make a documentary on child victims of war.
"I tried rebuild my life has been a very tough story and I do my best to be happy and to be as positive as I can, " Mariatu confesses, who concludes with the hope that all governments "to work together, fight hunger, to defend children and fight for peace."
