Human Rights in Sierra Leone - Children's Rights

Children's Rights

Only the children of “Negro-African descent” receive citizenship at birth; other children born in Sierra Leone become citizens of their parents' homelands. Others may apply for citizenship, but such applications must be personally approved by the president, and no such application has been approved since 2002.

Primary school is supposedly free but schools demand fees and also charge for uniforms and books. Sexual abuse of children is a major and growing issue, and the government takes little action against it. Sierra Leone is a signatory of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, but not the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. It has had a Child Rights Act since 2007, but the law has been far from fully implemented. Marriage of girls under 18 is illegal, but forced child marriage is widespread, with more than half of females marrying before age 18. Child prostitution is also on the rise, with most of the street children in cities working as prostitutes. There is little effort by the government to do anything about this state of affairs.

The Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone expressed concern in 2011 that pregnant girls had been removed from an examination hall during the administration of an important test, the Basic Education Certificate Examination, an action that it described as “a denial of the right to education.”