who prefers to be called Aminatta, has only recently come to get counseling for being a victim of gang rape. She says a friend told her about the center in the town of Makeni, run by the non-governmental organization Action for Children in Conflict. The agency provides medical advice and legal counseling for sexually abused children.

"I was about 10-years old when I was raped by my brother and a group of four older boys," she said. "Later on, when I heard about this center, I decided to come and make a report. I came here and they have been counseling me from this time."

Aminatta has not seen her brother since she was raped, and says that he was part of the Revolutionary United Front Rebels, although he wasnot much older than her at the time of the rape.

Rebel groups recruited child soldiers injecting them with drugs so that they would fight better. Sexual violence was used as a weapon, and family members were forced to watch daughters or wives being raped, or were forced to rape them themselves.

Even today, sexual attacks continue in Sierra Leone. UNICEF protection officer Donald Shaw estimates that 3,000 cases of sexual abuse occur in a year, often committed by family members or friends. But, Mr. Shaw believes that the sexual violence that occurred during the war has made people speak out against it now.

"By actually indiscriminately raping children this resulted in seeing the horror of sexual assault or rape. The extreme, extreme case, so it was not a friend or