Since achieving independence from the United Kingdom in 1961, Sierra Leone has
functioned as a constitutional democracy with two main parties, the All People´s Congress (APC) and the Sierra Leone People´s Party (SLPP), dominating the political scene (African Child Policy Forum, 2011). The Sierra Leone constitution (1991) guarantees the equal rights of all women, and, following the civil war, a number of progressive new laws were passed to tackle discriminatory practices and customs and to update existing legislature to address gender based and sexual violence against women (Abdullah, 2012). Perhaps the most important post-war development is the Child Rights Act (CRA, 2007), which represented an attempt to assimilate the CRC into national law, as well as to harmonise the different
domestic law systems, in line with the CRC’s principles (Robinson, 2015). It also represented a radical departure for Sierra Leone with regard to traditional attitudes towards girls in
particular. Under the CRA, a child is defined as a person under the age of 18, which is significant because until the adoption of the Act, the limit was set at 14 years. Child labour is prohibited under the Act, free medical care granted to all children and with reference to corporal punishment, the CRA states that “no correction of the child is justifiable if it is unreasonable or if the child ´is incapable of understanding the purpose of the correction´” (African Child Policy Forum, 2012: 101). The CRA also sets out provisions to protect girls from sexual abuse and to encourage their re-engagement in school, as well as setting the minimum age for marriage for both sexes at 18 years. Articles 11 and 33 of the Act discuss the elimination of harmful practices including forced marriages, FGM, and economic exploitation, stating “No person shall subject a child to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment including any cultural practice that dehumanises or is injurious to the physical and mental welfare of the child” (Government of Sierra Leone, 2007: Article 33.1), although FGM is not explicitly prohibited.
Three “Gender Acts” were introduced in 2007 to guarantee women’s property and divorce rights and to legislate against domestic violence (Coinco, 2010). A three-year strategic plan was established in 2008 to oversee the implementation of the Gender Acts, which if properly resourced and implemented, could help to overcome many of the social and cultural barriers to girls´ empowerment. The gender laws offer new protections to victims of domestic abuse, challenge discriminatory customary laws, set the age of 18 years as the minimum in
customary marriages, mandate the registration of customary marriages and divorces, and ensure that women and children have the right to inherit under customary law (Abdullah, 2012). Until the introduction of the Sexual Offences Act (2012), the main piece of legislation relating to child sexual exploitation in Sierra Leone was the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act, which dated back to 1926 (when the country was still under colonial rule), and dealt
principally with incest and prostitution, but which designated sexual intercourse with girls under 14 years as a criminal act (African Child Policy Forum, 2013). The Sexual Offences Act represented a significant step forward, harmonising domestic, customary and Islamic laws with international standards, including CEDAW. It aims to address the culture of impunity for perpetrators of abuse that prevails in Sierra Leone, through introducing strict sentencing for offenders in schools and communities, and bolstering Family Support Units (FSUs) based within the police service to support victims of violence and prosecute offenders (Abdullah, 2012).
Table 3.2 Summary of relevant national legislation in Sierra Leone19
National Legislation Description Year
Passed
Education Act
Established basic education as a right for every citizen. Children have a right to nine years of compulsory, basic education (primary through to junior secondary school), starting formal education at the age of six.
2004
Anti-Human Trafficking Act
Established a ban on people trafficking; the Act also set out procedures for the prosecution of
offenders. 2005
Child Rights Act Enshrined the provisions of the CRC in the
Sierra Leone constitution. 2007
Three Gender Rights Acts: Domestic Violence Act; Devolution of Estates Act; Registration of Customary Marriage and Divorce Act.
Set out women’s rights against domestic violence; property rights and rights in customary marriages and divorces. Banned forced or early marriage for girls under the age of 18.
2007
Sexual Offences Act
Protects girls from abuse from people in authority; bans rape in marriage; provided greater powers to Family Support Units (FSU) to investigate and prosecute cases of sexual abuse.
2012
At this time, there is no law prohibiting female genital mutilation in Sierra Leone (which at
90 per cent represents the highest rate of FGM in Africa after Djibouti (93 per cent), Guinea (97 per cent) and Somalia (98 per cent)) (Unicef, 2018). The lack of legislative progress is due to the fact that FGM is a political issue, as leaders who speak out against the practice risk alienating voters who value FGM as part of their traditional culture. However, Sierra Leone ratified the Maputo Protocol in 2015, which calls upon African governments to eliminate FGM and other harmful practices including early marriage. FGM was banned during the Ebola outbreak but the practice resurged once these restrictions were lifted. In an effort to prevent politicians from “buying” votes through sponsoring FGM ceremonies, the
government again prohibited FGM for the duration of the 2018 election campaign, with anti- FGM groups expressing their hope that this could lead to a permanent ban in the future (Reuters, 2018). The need for political leadership on discrimination and violence against women, especially with regard to FGM, was mentioned several times during the fieldwork. It was emphasised that more resources are required to enforce the new laws and to pursue the perpetrators of violence and abuse. In addition, the research informants stated that the majority of girls and women know little about their rights under the new laws and are therefore unable to exercise them.
“There is this culture that women cannot have positions, women cannot have power, women cannot have property. So we are educating them about that. Because there are laws now, like the three gender laws, which give power to women, for women to own property, to become leaders on the community.” (Youth activist, Freetown, 2012).
The right to education for all children is guaranteed under Sierra Leone’s constitution
(Section 9 (3)). The Education Act (2007), as well as the most recent Sierra Leone Education Sector Plan (2018-2020), set out the country’s priorities for education policy and practice, as
well as the many challenges facing the country´s education system. As outlined in the CRC and the Education Act, the state pledged to provide free compulsory primary education for all children for six years from age six onwards, as well as a further three years at JSS (junior secondary school) level, which is free for girls in the Northern and Eastern areas of the country, in order to address low levels of female participation in education in those districts (Wang, 2007). Under the CRC and domestic law, free secondary education should be provided when possible. In addition, fees were scrapped for the National Primary School Examination (NPSE), which all children are required to pass in order to move on to secondary level education. Despite improvements in terms of access to primary education, informants to this research stressed that greater financial support and awareness-raising efforts are required to ensure that girls complete their education at secondary level. In addition, scant attention has been paid at a policy level in Sierra Leone regarding the impact of sexual and gender-based violence on girls at school (Denney and Ibrahim, 2013), a serious and widespread problem also raised by participants in the current research.
Sierra Leone has put some planning and resources into tackling gender discrimination, but more needs to be done if it is to meet its international obligations and provide for the needs of its most vulnerable children and young people. The widespread failure of the state in Sierra Leone to ensure basic protections and entitlements under human rights legislation,
emphasises that the realisation of rights needs to go beyond legislation and policy
development to stress the universality of rights on the basis of our common humanity; the development of structures that allow for social and economic rights to be realised; and public acceptance of human rights more generally: as Turner explains, “human rights legislation provides a formal juridical safety net against abuses, but the law needs an additional
legal contracts are to work effectively” (2006: 23).
According to informants to this research, despite the efforts of the government and NGOs, the new laws are having little impact on the lives of girls and young women, especially those in the provinces, due to lack of awareness, information, and because of the high rates of illiteracy among women. While the rights of all children are guaranteed under the
constitution, it is clear from statistics, as well as anecdotal evidence, that social and cultural norms, as well as entrenched poverty, are preventing girls from realising their rights and “stalling the achievement of transformative change” (Abdullah, 2015:1). With regard to the policy of free basic education, for example, the reasons for problems in terms of
implementation, offered by research participants, included: a lack of state resources allocated to education; poverty and the costs associated with education (books, uniforms, as well as fees); lack of information and awareness-raising regarding new laws; low quality of education; and a lack of a supportive and safe environment for girls at school (Robinson, 2015). The gap between legislation and the reality of implementation was summed up by a research participant who had her own opinion as to why attempts to realise new laws and policies in practice have thus far been half-hearted:
“We’re talking about girls and children [who] should go to school, there is a law in this country that children should all go to school. Are they all in school? No. Are we insisting that every child, a boy and girl, should go to school? No. Because there is free education for the girl children but if we insist that more children go to school, the government does not have the money to pay for all the children” (Women’s education advocate, Freetown, 2012).