Sierra Leone child marriage ban welcomed as President Julius Maada Bio signs law

Sierra Leone has introduced in a brand new legislation banning youngster marriage with a lot fanfare at a ceremony organised by First Woman Fatima Bio within the capital, Freetown.

Invited friends, together with first girls from Cape Verde and Namibia, watched as her husband President Julius Maada Bio signed the Prohibition of Youngster Marriage Act into legislation.

Anyone now concerned within the marriage of a lady aged underneath the age of 18 will probably be jailed for not less than 15 years or fined round $ 4,000 (£3,200), or each.

College pupil Khadijatu Barrie, whose sister was married off at 14, informed the BBC she welcomed the ban however wished it had are available in to save lots of her youthful sibling.

“I actually want it had occurred earlier. I might have not less than saved my sister and my mates and different neighbours,” the 26-year-old gender research undergraduate stated.

Sierra Leone is a patriarchal society and it is not uncommon for a father to offer his daughter’s hand in marriage forcibly.

Ms Barrie confronted this prospect aged 10. She resisted it and fled the household dwelling after her father disowned her.

She was fortunate sufficient to search out academics who paid for her faculty charges and a sympathetic employee from the UN kids’s company who helped her out with lodging.

However she says it’s troublesome for many who dwell in rural areas to buck custom and each neighborhood will should be knowledgeable in regards to the new legislation for it to be efficient.

“If everybody understands what’s there ready for you in case you do it I am certain this nation will probably be a greater one,” Ms Barrie stated.

The ministry of well being estimates {that a} third of women are married off earlier than they flip 18, accounting for the nation’s excessive variety of maternal deaths – among the many highest on the earth.

Those that face punishment underneath the brand new guidelines embrace the groom, the dad and mom or guardians of the kid bride, and even those that attend the marriage.

Mrs Bio, who has been on the forefront in campaigning in opposition to sexual abuse since her husband turned president six years in the past, needed the signing of the invoice to be an enormous event.

Since MPs handed the laws a couple of weeks in the past, it has not acquired a lot protection regionally.

On the ceremony, President Bio stated that his “motivation and dedication to empowering girls and women is firmly rooted in my private life journey”.

His eight-year-old daughter was amongst those that watched him signal the invoice.

The 60-year-old president defined how he had misplaced his father at an early age and had been introduced up by his mom and later his elder sister who “supported and inspired me to pursue my goals to the very best of my means”.

He acknowledged his spouse’s dedication to championing girls’s rights: “Collectively, we need to construct an empowered Sierra Leone the place girls are given a fair platform to succeed in their full potential. I’ve all the time believed that the way forward for Sierra Leone is feminine.”

Rights activists reacted favourably to the lawm, calling it a watershed second.

On their X web page, the US Bureau of African Affairs welcomed the passage of the invoice saying the “vital milestone not solely protects women however promotes strong human rights protections”.