Sierra Leone: Female Entertainers highlight challenges amid Covid-19

By Ibrahim S. Bangura

Female entertainers, (musicians, filmmakers, comedians and models) have recently said that the outbreak of the coronavirus in Sierra Leone has restricted them from holding events, and making international tours, and exposing them to sexual exploitation by some stakeholders in the industries.

Alimatu Farakhan Sesay, a female film producer, writer, and actress of the Lemas’s Diary in Freetown, said that because of the coronavirus restrictions, they were unable to produce movies because investors fear to invest their money into movies because of the uncertainty surrounding COVID-19.

“We can’t produce movies right now because people are afraid of giving us their places to shoot our movie because of Covid-19. Entertainers are afraid of going out because of the curfew,” she said.

Sesay said they don’t usually realize anything from the contents of their movies, because they had not been making shows and the foreign movies had taken over Sierra Leone movie market.

Fatmata Kamara, an actress of Sam Jay Movie Production in the east of Freetown, said that they could not make enough money from the movies they produced because of the outbreak of the coronavirus in the country. She said, “We used to sell at the hotels to foreigners and the tourists, but tourists are no more coming. We are having little sales which is negatively affecting the industry and the female filmmakers.”

She said that that movie producers had not been producing movies because of the ban on public gatherings and other coronavirus restrictions.

Kamara said before the outbreak of the virus, they had spent lots of money to produce their movies, but they were unable to get anything after all they spent. “We were unable to premier our movies that were made before the virus came. All that we spent were all gone in vain,” she stressed.

She said the film industry usually creates employment opportunities for female youths and as well contributes to the development of the nation’s economy.

She said through filmmaking, thousands of female youths had been helped across the country to be self-employed. “We were really affected by the outbreak of the virus in the country. We are now reaching out to our fans through social media, which is contributing little in promoting ourselves and our movies,” she concluded.

Zainab Conteh aka Z Zee Zee, a musician in the Freetown, said that female musicians in Sierra Leone exploited by some of the Music Producers, Promoters, Disc Jockeys, Managers and other stakeholders in the industry.

She said before their songs could be promoted, managers usually ask them for sex. She said, “Before our songs could by promoted, managers may want to have an affair with us; the producers may want to sex us before our songs could be produced; and the promoters may also want to use our bodies before our songs could get promoted. That all is affecting us, the female musicians in the Sierra Leone music industry today.”

She said before the outbreak of the coronavirus, they were having music festivals that used to expose them to the world, and made them earn their livings.

“Since men do dominate the industry, they usually use that opportunity to exploit women. When the virus was not in Sierra Leone, we used to manage ourselves through revenue generated from the national and international tours.”

She said that it had been a difficult task for them to earn their living from music, saying, “Since some of us don’t want to have sex with the promoters, they are not helping us by promoting our songs. If situation like this continues in Sierra Leone, I music industry will crumble. And if the issue of the coronavirus remains this way, there would be no hope for us the female musicians in Sierra Leone.”

Zee Zee said that the corona restrictions like the prohibition of public gathering and the curfew, it difficult to manage themselves as they were not making enough money.

Emmanuel Foyoh aka Artical Foyoh, the president of the Eastern Artist Union and Chief Executive Officer of the Vision Entertainment ,told this medium that the entertainment industry was one of the sectors that was totally shot down by coronavirus, leaving the entertainers with no hope.

He said the entertainment industry was drastically affected by the outbreak of Corona virus in the country, emphasizing, “Entertainers usually deal with crowd but since there was a restriction on public gathering, there are no opportunities for the entertainers to get connection with their fans.”

He stated that they were using social media to promote themselves, but that had only contributed less revenue for the entertainers and the music industry.

He said, promoting music online is not so common in Sierra Leone due to few internet users.

He said, the virus did not only affect the entertainment industry, but the nation and its economy as well.

Foyoh said that, recently, female musicians had been given the privileges to get connected internationally and get their songs promoted without any exploitation by any of the stakeholders in the industry. “All the sectors of the entertainment in Sierra sector in Leone had recently come together to see that, everyone, mostly the female entertainers are included, and their works are promoted,” he concluded.

This was produced with support for Journalist for Human Right (JHR) and the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) 2021 human rights fellowship program.