Under pressure from activists and Maryland?s two U.S. senators, federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have agreed to release from jail a pregnant survivor of the Sierra Leone Civil War.
“I feel so good. I?m nine months pregnant,” said Mahawa Conde, 35, of Bladensburg, who is expected to give birth May 16. One doctor told Conde she?s pregnant with twin girls, although another physician disputed that.
Conde was released from federal custody this week after Yale Law School students and Sens. Benjamin Cardin and Barbara Mikulski contacted ICE asking for her release, citing a long history of abuse in her life. She is out of jail for three months.
“Senator Cardin is glad she will be home after giving birth,” said his spokeswoman, Sue Walitsky.
Conde was a sex slave for almost two years during the Sierra Leone Civil War. She was repeatedly gang-raped by Revolutionary United Front rebels and subjected to forcible genital mutilation, said Michael Tan, a Yale Law School student who helped with her case. The Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization of the law school helped represent Conde.
She was eventually rescued by soldiers from Liberia and Kenya, she said.
“I was kidnapped for two years,” Conde said as she cooked a meal of beef for her family. “I was a sex slave. They beat me. I lost all my teeth at 24.”
In the United States since 1998, Conde does not have a green card but says she pays all her taxes. She faces deportation due to what she calls a misunderstanding over what she considered a gift from her employer that later resulted in a theft charge.
Conde pleaded guilty but didn?t understand the ramifications of that plea, Tan said.
“I?m still worried,though, because I have to feed my kids,” she said. “Who is going to take care of my kids if I?m deported?”
Conde contacted the Yale students to help advocate for her temporary release ? so she wouldn?t have to give birth behind bars.
“I?m very, very grateful,” said Conde?s husband, Theirno Camara, 32. “I?m so happy. It was tough having her pregnant in there. We?re starting to get our life back to normal.”
The students who helped Conde say they?re not giving up on her case and hope to keep her form being deported.
“This is my home now,” Conde said. “… If I go back to Sierra Leone, I?m going to be killed.”
