Sierra Leone: Mining Boom Brings Rights Abuses

Feb 28, 2014 | Human Rights Watch
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The government of Sierra Leone and a mining company that is the country’s largest private employer have undermined villagers’ access to food and prevented workers from challenging abusive practices, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The government should ensure that economic development projects in the booming post conflict nation do not come at the expense of the human rights of local populations. 

The 96-page report, “Whose Development?: Human Rights Abuses in Sierra Leone’s Mining B... documents how the government and London-based African Minerals Limited forcibly relocated hundreds of families from verdant slopes to a flat, arid area in Tonkolili District. As a result, residents lost their ability to cultivate crops and engage in income generating activities that once sustained them. Police carried out a bloody crackdown in the town of Bumbuna in April 2012 to quell a protest by workers who went on strike after being barred from forming a union of their own choosing.