Human Rights in Sierra Leone - Women's Rights

Women's Rights

There is widespread discrimination in Sierra Leone against women, who are routinely denied equal access to education, medical care, employment, and credit. In 2007, 43 percent of women in Sierra Leone were married to polygamous men.

Women are at a significant disadvantage under the tribal laws that are in force everywhere except in the capital. These laws forbid, for example, the ownership of land by women. Tribal chiefs sometimes detain women and children or evict them from their homes in collusion with the women's husbands. Women's status in some ethnic groups is notably worse than in others, although they are effectively second-class citizens in all of the tribes. Tribal secret societies in rural areas hold forcible initiation rites that, in the case of women, involve genital mutilation. The number of such initiations, however, appears to be on the decrease.

Rape is punishable by up to 14 years in prison but is very common, and, according to the U.S. State Department, is “viewed more as a societal norm than a criminal problem.” Rape victims are often urged to marry their rapists. There is no law against spousal rape. Rapists are rarely indicted, especially in rural districts, but since the Family Support Units (FSUs) were formed and the Gender Acts passed in 2007, reports of rapes have been on the rise. Thanks to corruption and inefficiency, rape cases rarely make it to trial, and convictions are all but unheard of. There are few medical or social services available to rape victims, who must pay prohibitive fees for medical reports in order to file charges. Women often withdraw complaints, moreover, for fear of stigma or retaliation or because they have been paid off.

Sexual harassment is also widespread, and is not illegal. Wife-beating is taken for granted as a normal part of life, and most women consider it a justified punishment for such offenses as burning food or leaving the house without permission. Female genital mutilation, which is carried out mainly by women's secret societies, and which has been performed on 35-40 percent of women in the country, is on the decline owing to a growing sense that it is morally offensive, but remains a major problem.

“The maternal mortality rate in Sierra Leone is one of the highest in the world,” Amnesty International notes. In 2009 a report by the organization described the country's high maternal and infant mortality rates as a “human rights emergency,” noting that one in eight women in the country risk dying during pregnancy or childbirth. The report gained wide attention, with an article in the Guardian noting that most women in the country “are too poor to pay for lifesaving treatment...Thousands bleed to death after giving birth. Most die in their homes. Some die on the way to hospital – in taxis, on motorbikes or on foot. Less than half of deliveries are attended by a skilled birth attendant and fewer than one in five are carried out in health facilities.”

In September 2011, Amnesty International noted that despite the launch in Sierra Leone, a year earlier, of the Free Health Care Initiative, under which pregnant women and lactating mothers were supposed to receive free medical treatment, such women were still “being asked to pay for drugs, which they cannot afford.” An Amnesty International official called Sierra Leone's health-care system “dysfunctional in many respects,” with poor women and girls enjoying only “limited access to essential care in pregnancy and childbirth.” Nor is there an effective complaint process.

The 2007 Domestic Violence Act, 2007 Devolution of Estates Act and 2009 Registration of Customary Marriage and Divorce Act, known as “the gender acts,” were intended to strengthen women's legal and financial position, and in 2010 the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender, and Children's Affairs began implementing a four-year National Gender Strategic Plan designed with the help of UN agencies. The ministry's efforts to protect women's rights are ineffectual, however, owing to a lack of resources and of cooperation on the part of other government bodies. In its 2011 report, the Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone noted critically that while a Sexual Offences Bill had been drafted, it had not yet been introduced in Parliament.