Aminata Conteh-Biger

Author, Inspirational Speaker, Founder and CEO of the Aminata Maternal Foundation

In 1999, Sierra Leone was in the midst of a brutal civil war where mindless violence, vicious amputation and the rape of young-enslaved women were the everyday weapons of bloody conflict. It was also where rebel soldiers snatched 18-year-old Aminata Conteh-Biger from her father’s arms, then held her captive for months. After she was released, the UNHCR recognised that her captors still posed a serious threat to her safety. So, still in her teens, she was put on a plane and flown to Australia to start afresh as a refugee in a land she knew nothing about.