Access to Justice for 500 Women in Sierra Leone

This year 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 continued to ensure that women’s rights were safeguarded during the implementation of Covid-19 emergency measures.

Soon after Covid-19 hit Sierra Leone, the government of Sierra Leone 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.

During this time, AdvocAid noted that the government had implemented a law enforcement approach rather than a public health approach which disproportionately affected women especially women and girls in contact with the law. Taking into consideration their financial hardships, they were forced into debt to pay such fines, or face incarceration for their inability to pay once they breached rules. In addition to this, AdvocAid noted that the broadly defined and applied rules also violated the right to religious practice which resulted in Muslim women being affected discriminately.

Advocaid has worked to provide recommendations to the Sierra Leone government that the emergency measures declared safeguard women’s rights under our submission to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights report.

Our submission highlighted multiple issues with regards to access to justice for women in Sierra Leone. The report highlighted that 77% of women detained during the lockdown were arrested for COVID-19 related offences, compared to only 31% of men. Through AdvocAid’s interventions and sensitization work, they were able to secure the release of the 71 men and women arrested for breaching COVID- 19 related restrictions. AdvocAid noted that it is the poor and marginalized that bear the brunt of the lockdown and other restrictions. Emergency measures have impacted access to justice for women and girls in Sierra Leone, particularly market women who have been restricted from selling goods while simultaneously acting as the breadwinner in the family.

AdvocAid , through its work to ensure emergency measures do not impact access to justice to women in Sierra Leone made multiple recommendations such as the Government needs to reduce overcrowding in detention centers as this increases the risk of covid-19 infection rates. For example, it could start from inmates arrested for committing petty offences and vulnerable low-risk and pre-trial detained women and lastly decriminalizing petty offences like loans or debts.

AdvocAid is continuing to provide recommendations to address the issues faced by women and girls accessing justice in Sierra Leone. To find out more about the recommendations made by AdvocAid to ensure access to justice click here.

• AdvocAid1_1.docx (DOCX)

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