Samuel Hinton

Street Children Forgiving Samuel Hinton

The purpose of the study is to determine the attitudes of Sierra Leone street children toward forgiveness. Data were collected through a review of related literature, a War Forgiveness Scale questionnaire, and comments on aspects of forgiveness collected from the participants. Thirty - six street children, nineteen from the Capital, Freetown, and 17 from the provincial capital, Bo responded to the questionnaire. They ranged in ages from 5 -17. There were 14 girls and 22 boys. All the children had suffered trauma due to violence in the war. The results indicated a lukewarm or partial forgiveness to specific acts of violence against their individual persons.