Mohamed Pa-Momo Fofanah

Children's Rights Advocate - standing up for human rights

After witnessing firsthand the horrors of Sierra Leone's civil war, seeing children forced to become soldiers and commit violent acts, Mohamed Pa-Momo Fofanah advocates for children's rights and promotes legal reform in a country emerging from a brutal civil conflict, economic collapse and a fractured government. In addition to providing free legal counsel to children and the indigent, Pa-Momo has helped reform the juvenile judicial system keeping children out of adult prisons and establishing a monitoring system in detention facilities.

A founder of the Lawyers Centre for Legal Assistance (LAWCLA), which offers free legal assistance to victims of human rights abuses, Pa-Momo has served as National Coordinator for Children International and as consultant to UNICEF and the Sierre Leone government in drafting the National Report on the Rights and Welfare of Children.

Standing up for the principles of the Universal Declaration
Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms the rights of children to "special care and assistance." Children's rights were further strengthened through the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which nearly every country in the world has signed and ratified.

Learn more:
>>Bio: Mohamed Pa-Momo Fofanah
>>The Lawyers' Centre for Legal Assistance - Sierra Leone

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