Liberia: real lives

Fodey Kawah begins his day at 8am and works late into the night. A former Liberian refugee, he is driven to reunite children with their families, and is thrilled when he makes the match and brings children home.

The child Kawah is looking for today has given ChildFund Australia's affiliate organisation in Liberia the wrong family name. The child, abducted during Liberia's war years, was scared to go home. He was afraid to face his family because he has been associated with fighting forces. To avoid going home, some children will give an aunt's name, make up a name altogether, or give a former commander's name... anything to avoid facing their parents and their communities.

It's the job of ChildFund in Liberia's social workers-turned-detectives to trace the children's families. Often they go door-to-door in a community, asking people if they know of a child. To corroborate whether a child actually lived in the community, they may ask community members the child's full name, any special identifying marks, or details given.

Kawah says his happiest case was that of a 10-year-old boy whose uncle took him to tote ammunition in an effort to keep someone else from abducting the boy and turning him into a fighter. Parents were able to identify the child by telling of a scar on his foot acquired when the skin burst because of swelling from malnutrition. Kawah recalls that reunion of mother and son as a particularly happy one.

Some cases don't end so well. Parents don't want a child back because they fear the reaction of the community. There's the case of a child who was forced to kill his cousin. It's hard to go home once you have done something like that. And it's a favorite tactic of fighting forces worldwide...to isolate a child by making them kill a family member.

Another challenge for ChildFund in Liberia social workers and family tracers is winning family and community acceptance for girls who have had babies as a result of their abduction and sexual abuse by fighting forces.

"We have to explain to the parents and community members that these were young children when they were taken from home...that they weren't responsible for what happened to them," explains Chris Kamara, a ChildFund in Liberia social worker. "The best place for these children is home."