Access to Justice for 500 Women in Sierra Leone

[Trigger Warning: this story contains details of a violent relationship]

This is a story about a lady called Hickmatu. Her husband is physically and verbally abusive to her, and when she defends herself, she's arrested. This is such a common issue in Sierra Leone and makes violence a common pathway to prison. Indeed, our 2019 research showed that 72% of incarcerated women in Sierra Leone had suffered violence as adults at the hands of their partners.

Your support means that we can provide women like Hickmatu with legal representation as well as welfare and psychosocial support while incarcerated, ensuring they have access to justice. Thank you.

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Hickmatu is a farmer, a wife, a mother of three children, and she was the breadwinner of her family. After her mother died, her caregiving burden increased leaving her with less time to engage in the domestic work she usually did . This angered her husband and resulted into endless arguments. For the sake of peace in the house, Hickmatu decided to do as her husband had instructed. She wanted to make her husband happy.

One day, when Hickmatu's husband was late to collect food for the workers at the farm, one of the workers came to their hime to pick up the food himself. While Hickmatu was serving him food, her husband showed up and in anger, took the food away from the worker and threw it away with the rest of the food. After all her hard work, this was very upsetting for Hickmatu. Out of anger and frustration, she picked up a stick to hit her husband, but her husband’s younger brother stepped in and took the stick from her.

She ran to the bedroom and locked the door, as she did not want her husband to beat her. Realising what she had done, her husband instead broke the bedroom window and started throwing stones at her. One stone hit her in the stomach, causing her so much pain. She told her husband to stop or she would pour water on him. He refused and kept at it. Convinced she had to defend herself, as her husband reached out to hit her again, Hickmatu picked up a container with water and poured it on him. She was unaware that the water had caustic soda in it (she was in the process of making soap).

Her husband yelled for help, claiming she had thrown caustic soda on him. She did not believe it until people came to his help and confirmed his claims. Hickmatu went into hiding, but was later arrested by Police and detained in Daru.

In late November 2022, she was charged to court for the offense of wounding with intent. After several adjournments while at the Daru Magistrate Court, she was detained at the Kenema Female Correctional Center.

The slow nature of Sierra Leone's legal system meant that she was incarcerated for months, unable to look after her children, or continue her business. 

It was while she was in Kenema Female Correctional Center, that hickmatu met AdvocAid's paralegal who was there to run some legal education sessions. She turned to the paralegal and talked to her about her vulnerability and how she needs legal services but she cannot afford them. The paralegal provided legal support, informing her of her rights and the process her case would take, and also contacted AdvocAid's social worker, to make sure Hickmatu had the welfare items she needed as well as some counseling - both in a group and individual sessions.

While incarcerated, Hickmatu realised that there were so many other women who shared a similar experience with her, This saddened her even more, unable to understand why no one protects women in their communities. During the counseling sessions, she talked about how she was depressed because she was separated from her family longer than she had expected and no one from her family had visited her as they lived very far and they lacked financial stability.

Fortunately, she was later discharged and released for want of prosecution, as her husband pleaded and told the court that he did not wish to continue with the matter. On her release, she told the paralegal that she was hoping that AdvocAid would do more to prevent women from being put behind bars, as well as take measures to protect the children of incarcerated women, and help them maintain communication with their families.

Today, Hickmatu is living happily with her family and taking steps to reintegrate in her community. She believes that with AdvocAid, women who are detained have a friend in AdvocAid, and as she now knows what to do and where to go, she will tell other women about AdvocAid.

Links:

• Find out more about AdvocAid's work
• Our report identifying causes & consequences of imprisonment