Welcome to our website

RESCUING, REHABILITATING and REDEEMING THOSE SEXUALLY ABUSED, EXPLOITED AND TRAFFICKED IN THE GAMBIA and LIBERIA, WEST AFRICA

"Please allow for some major changes to our website; some overdue editing.  Thank you" (November 2023)

Samaritana Gambia is proudly lead by Country Director Ms Marian Faye.

She served as the 1st Gambian Intern in 2017 and within 1 year was Team leader.

In 2019 she was appointed Country Director and is answerable only to the Board who meet 4 times per year.

She is contactable on +220 298 6979 and at Marianfaye727@gmail.com

Recently we have had very good interaction with the Nigerian Embassy as we attempt to get Naatip (National Agency Against Trafficking in Persons) the Goverment Justice Dept Unit charged with prosecuting Traffickers etc. [See the State Dept TIP report of their efforts over the last decade! Getting them to do their jib has proved fruitless, for 5 years we have been trying to get them to sign an MOU written as they demanded. Tried to get them to support eh girls who escape the Ghetto’s (aka Brothels) Supply them with heaps of evidence. ll to no avail!]

However the Nigerian Embassy has on the whole cooperated with our requests to assist the survivors to get back to Nigeria, where we have a number of Nigerian colleagues who meet them and help them with family issues etc.

We are looking forward to working with IOM (International Organisation for Migration UN) who seem only too willing to help whilst Naatip eat their budget seemingly doing very little to fulfil their moral, ehtical, human and legal responsibility.

Background

Samaritana started in 2015 reaching out to girls and women who were hustling in the infamous SeneGambia tourist strip.

From there it grew into making Recycled plastic water bags, then Rag bags, then Recyclable Sanitary kits, all the while visiting the local brothels to show love to the girls/women there.

Two Interns in 2017 took things to the next level and began doing three-week presentations in schools, where we quickly uncovered a high degree of sexual abuse both by staff and in local communities.

After years of fighting to get Memorandum of Understandings (MOUs) with some Government departments amidst demands for fast fast money from their people, we now have, three years later MOUs with the Education Department, Department of Social Services, the Police and the support of the local Bakau community.

God provided an excellent Compound and a great Samaritana Gambia Board. Samaritana Gambia can now provide accommodation as requested by victims, police and family.

We also run a Free Community Library there with 1500 books, provide occupational and small group Rehabilitation using Play, Dance, Puppets, Water and Song Poems and other forms of Therapy.

In 2020, after our fast promoted Intern to Investigator to Team Leader to Country Director’s instigation, we started a parallel Samaritana in Liberia because of our reception there by a number of young women’s organisations who were desperate for a Safe House.

Samaritana Liberia was formed and gave them training on how to Reach, Rescue, Rehabilitate, Redeem Victims and Survivors, as well as prosecute offenders.

In April 2022, God provided a way for Samaritana Liberia to open a Safe House.Since then the team has been expanded to 7 and they are doing incredible work, karate kicking offenders down, even arresting offenders and transporting them police, then court then to the remad jail. Police there as in The Gambia are more of a big problem than a Honourable Force for Justice. Can’t always blame them when they are regularly not paid and wait months sometimes for their pitiful pay.

All cuedos to Isaac George and his offsiders in the Justice Dept GBSV (Gender BAsed Sexual Vioence) Unit who love our team and back them to the hilt.

Two new Samaritana Liberian workers with Tru – October 2021