Gender Equality Sierra Leone Project #27805

Access to Justice for 500 Women in Sierra Leone

by AdvocAid

Access to Justice for 500 Women in Sierra Leone

Project Report | Jan 6, 2021
Continued Pursuit of Justice for Women and Girls

By Mena Kalokoh | Development Intern

2021 is the first year of AdvocAid’s new five-year strategy. Pursuing Justice for Women and Girls is one of our core strategic directions. Through this strategic direction we will continue to ensure that women’s rights, like Amina’s* below, are upheld.

Amina* is a 34 year old fish trader in Freetown. To boost her fish business, in February 2020, she took a Le 1,500,000 loan (approx $140) with 5% interest from a money lender in her community. She agreed to pay back the loan within six months. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic hit Sierra Leone soon after and the Sierra Leone government declared a 12-month long state of emergency and introduced new measures including reducing market hours for traders, lockdown periods, restrictions on travel between provinces, and a nationwide curfew.

Because of restrictions Amina could not travel to other provinces so she could not sell her fish. Her business collapsed and she could not pay back the loan as planned. The money lender reported Amina to the police and she was arrested and detained for three days at the police station.

During our regular police station monitoring, AdvocAid’s paralegal met Amina and advocated for her to be granted bail. To secure her release on bail, our social worker conducted family tracing and arranged for Amina’s father to stand as a surety for her. AdvocAid worked with Amina to resolve the matter by developing a payment plan which was agreed upon by all the parties involved and the money lender dropped the charges. AdvocAid also supported her with a small grant to start up her business again.

Given the long-term impacts of COVID-19 regulations on women and girls’ lives, with your donations AdvocAid will continue to address the challenges they face; for example, by increasing the size of transport and start-up grants given to women so that they more fully address women’s financial hardships.

*name changed to protect her anonymity

Links:

Read about our five goals that will guide this strategic period

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Sep 8, 2020
Marie's Story: Detained for Non-payment of Debt

By Mena Kalokoh | Development Intern

One of our recent clients, Marie*, who is 6 months pregnant, was detained for fraudulent conversion or non-payment of debt. Marie is a business woman; she buys goods from a local village and sells them in the city. Last year, using a loan, she invested money in a yam business. Unfortunately, her business endeavor proved unsuccessful because of a heavy rainy season. In order to cover her losses and to continue to operate her business, she borrowed additional money from others. Because Marie was already struggling to support her family, she was unable to pay her loans when her creditors asked for repayment and in April she was arrested and detained. She owed about $550 in loans. Our paralegals provided her with legal advice and worked to find a resolution with the complainant. Our social worker helped her with food provisions while she was in detention and conducted family tracing. Marie was eventually granted bail, but she was unable to find someone to provide surety, so she remained in detention.

In May, when she expressed serious concern over the health of her unborn baby, one of our social workers took her to a hospital for an ultrasound. AdvocAid also helped Marie buy the medication prescribed by the doctor. AdvocAid continued to work to find a resolution to her case and by June, we were able to give Marie a grant to pay back the loan to the primary complainant, securing her release.

Our latest research report, Woman Wahala Na Prison, found 14% of women who are in detention had been charged or convicted of petty offences. These women are often detained for long periods of time under laws which criminalise non-payment of debt and loitering for example. Because people are often unaware of their legal rights and because of these outdated laws, straightforward disputes over debt can often result in women being detained for owing small sums of money.

Your donations ensure that we can continue to support women like Marie* and campaign to decriminalise petty offences such as fraudulent conversion.

*Name has been changed to maintain anonymity for our clients.

Links:

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Jun 12, 2020
Alice's Story - Arrested for Buying Bread

By Anna Pagel | Development Associate

Alice* and her family live in a compound with three other families. When the Sierra Leone Government imposed a 3-day total lockdown in the beginning of April, Alice and the other families were confronted with a great difficulty. By the third day of the lockdown, all of them had run out of food – their financial means before the lockdown were just enough to cover food supplies for two days. Since they lived not far from a bakery, Alice volunteered to go out and buy some bread for everyone. She had made it to the bakery and was relieved to be almost home when she was spotted by two patrolling police officers who arrested her on the spot.

One of our Freetown paralegal’s, Mr Ayo, was getting ready for the day when two of Alice’s worried neighbours came to his home to tell him what had happened. Ayo immediately went to the police station where he found Alice. He spoke to the Commanding Officer and advocated for Alice. Through his intervention, she was released.

Just hours after her arrest, Alice was walked home to her compound by two officers, bread in hand. “When I was arrested, I thought I would be kept in the police station for a long time, and feared being sent to court. But the thing I was most worried about was that the longer I had to stay, the longer my people at home would have to go without food. I am very grateful to Mr Ayo for his help” said Alice.

Our paralegals in Freetown, Kenema and Makeni continue to provide vital legal aid at police stations and correctional centres. As Alice’s story shows, this is particularly essential during periods of total lockdown.

AdvocAid would not be able to help women during this pandemic without your continued support. On behalf of everyone we work with we thank you for your generous donations.

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