Bringing Her Home: A Family Reunited After Cross-Border Trafficking

To protect the survivor's identity, names, ages, locations, and other identifying details in this story have been changed. It reflects a real case handled by LEWAF's Response and Advocacy program.

For years, a mother found herself increasingly marginalized in her own home — her in-laws openly hostile, her role as a wife and mother steadily diminished, and major decisions about her own children made without her input. Eventually, unable to bear the treatment any longer, she left the household — though her husband refused to let her take their children with her. Determined to stay close to them, she continued visiting regularly.

The crisis came when she returned from a short trip to find that her youngest child had been taken across the border to a neighbouring country by a relative — without her knowledge or consent. When she confronted her husband, he insisted he had the right to take his own child wherever he wished. Community elders intervened, and on the advice of someone who had previously been helped by LEWAF, the family reached out to LEWAF directly.

LEWAF moved quickly. After an initial counselling session to support the distressed mother, the team convened an emergency meeting with partners and completed a formal referral to the Family Support Unit and Police. Within days, facing the reality of arrest, the child's relatives brought her back across the border to Sierra Leone. LEWAF arranged a full medical examination and treatment for the child, who had been malnourished while away, and she has since made a full recovery.

Mother and daughter — along with her other children — are now living together again, safely, at home.