President Ernest Bai Koroma has said he would apologise to women and children for the horrible experiences they went through during the 11-year-long civil war.

Koroma was responding to recommendations in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report presented by the human rights commission at State House in Freetown when he noted that finances were the biggest challenges.

“We will try and make the apology at the appropriate time,” he maintained and added, “It is incumbent on government to make sure that the recommendations of the TRC are adhered to.”

He noted that the report, titled “The State of Human Rights in Sierra Leone ,” has not been popularised, but that he would “ensure that it is popularised so that the mistakes of the past are not repeated.”

He also promised to set up a follow-up committee that would carefully study the recommendations and come up with a programme of implementation.

The President described the war in Sierra Leone as ‘the darkest period in our history” which would never be allowed to happen again and acknowledged that there were challenges to overcome before implementation.

The chairperson of the human rights commission Jamesina King earlier raised concerns over the slow pace of implementation.

“The TRC completed its work and submitted its report in October 2004. Government has partly and in a few cases implemented some recommendations... while a good number of them is yet to be implemented.”

She drew the President's attention to an imperative recommendation in paragraph 317 vol. 2 chapter 3 on page 167 which states that “the President as ‘Father of the Nation' and as Head of State should acknowledge the harm suffered by women and girls during the conflict in Sierra Leone and offer an unequivocal apology to them.”

The report itself contains very sensitive recommendations, including the abolition of the death penalty; the repeal of the seditious libel laws in the Public Order Act; the eradication of all unofficial school charges and the enforcement of compulsory primary education.

Present at the presentation ceremony were the attorney general and minister of justice; representatives from UNIOSIL's Rule of Law section; NaCSA, TRC, and the human rights commission.