Gender Equality Sierra Leone Project #27808

Post-prison Support for 300 Women in Sierra Leone

by AdvocAid

Post-prison Support for 300 Women in Sierra Leone

Project Report | Mar 10, 2020
Go Bifo!

By Rhiannon Davis | Executive Director

Many times when the women we work with get released from prison, they find it difficult to return to their pre-prison life. Even if family and friends do embrace them with open arms, they may sometimes find the burden of stigmatization and discrimination by other community members unbearable.

More than ten years ago, a small group of formerly incarcerated women initiated the Go Bifo (meaning 'moving forward' in Krio) meetings. During those meetings women who had spent time in police stations or prisons come together and create a safe space for themselves.

One regular member says about the group: "Here, I can just be myself without having my finger pointed at me. Here, we understand each other without having to explain a lot. It is a special kind of bond that connects us."

The Go Bifo women and their feedback about AdvocAid’s work and their experiences with the criminal justice system in Sierra Leone help AdvocAid reevaluate and improve our approaches. The women are also an important guide for our advocacy work. When advocating for legal reform, it is those women that give us the relevant insights about what sort of consequences certain laws have for their everyday life.

Your donations enable us to empower to the women and girls we work with, and offer them sustainable support in prison and beyond.

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Dec 13, 2019
Helping Sento and her sons start anew

By Anna Laura Magyarlaki | Development Associate

This October, AdvocAid celebrated some great news: our Makeni team was able to secure the release of two of our clients, a mother and her son who had been behind bars for over a year. Upon their release, our team made sure they would be able to get home safely and start afresh with the help of a start-up grant.

This is their story:

In 2017, Sento’s* two sons got into a fight that ended badly, with the opponent’s father killed. Sento rushed to the scene, but she was unable to separate the fighters. She and her two sons were arrested, despite the fact that none of them had raised a hand to the deceased.

Sento and her older son's matter was charged to High Court, but their case was adjourned repeatedly as the witnesses and complainants wouldn't show up. After the 20th adjournment, they were granted bail but, as they had no-one to stand as their surety, they remained behind bars. Even worse, Sento's younger son - who is still under 18 - was separated from them and taken to the Freetown Remand Home.

As the matter was adjourned so many times, AdvocAid’s duty counsel representing Sento was able to successfully plead for her release. All charges were dropped and Sento and her older son are now back at home. During their year of detention, they had lost much of their safety net and social network. If not for AdvocAid’s support they would have struggled even to get home, as their village was more than 25 miles from the correctional centre in which they were held. That is why it is essential for us to support our clients, even after release Providing even a small start-up grant of 500,000 Le (approx. $50), like we did for Sento, can be of great help.

Sento's younger son’s trial is still on, however thanks to our Freetown paralegal's intervention, he has been granted bail, so he could join his mother and brother at home.

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Cases like Sento’s are far from rare in Sierra Leone where an under-resourced and often unjust criminal justice system can end up trapping innocent people for years. AdvocAid would not be able to support them without your continued help. On behalf of the people we work with, thank you for your generous donations to AdvocAid.

To get the latest news from AdvocAid please follow us on:

- https://www.facebook.com/AdvocAidSierraLeone/

- https://twitter.com/advocaid

- https://www.instagram.com/advocaid/

* Names changed to protect clients’ identity.

Links:

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Sep 11, 2019
Faith's story - wrong place, wrong time

By Anna Laura Magyarlaki | Development Associate

Mr. Ayo

It was early morning as Faith* left Bo, in the south of Sierra Leone. The city of some 180,000 inhabitants was just waking up, with people getting ready for their daily chores and dogs roaming the city looking for their first meal of the day. The bus to Freetown was full - day workers, excited relatives, people heading to Freetown in hope of a better future, a stable income, or better education perhaps. Faith settled into her seat, and stared out of the window, letting the images of the road to Freetown pass by swiftly as the bus gained speed. Just turned 18, she was heading to Monkey Bush, a slum community in Waterloo where her aunt lived, on the outskirts of Freetown.

Once in Monkey Bush, Faith ran into some unexpected trouble. Her aunt was away when she arrived, so she stayed with a neighbour until her arrival. Two nights later, during a routine police raid of the neighbourhood, her host was arrested for unlawful possession of marijuana, whilst Faith was taken in for vagabonding and loitering.

Faith didn’t have a lawyer and - on the advice of others in detention - she pleaded guilty. He received a sentence of 3 months detention or 500,000 Leones (approx. $50). Her family back in Bo didn’t have that kind of money - they could barely make ends meet, and Faith had no one else to turn to.

Fortunately, one of AdvocAid’s paralegals Mr Ayo was on his regular visit to the court when he learnt about Faith’s sentencing. Mr Ayo met with Faith to discuss her case and understand her circumstances. With thanks to donations AdvocAid receives through Global Giving, we were able to pay Faith’s 500,000 leone fine shortly after and secure her release from the Freetown Female Correctional Centre. Within minutes of paying the fine, Faith was at AdvocAid’s office in downtown Freetown, fidgeting happily. ‘She was in tears when I got her out. She couldn’t even eat her lunch!’ remembered Mr Ayo. Faith decided to return to her family in Bo and AdvocAid was able to provide funds for her transportation. As she left the office to catch her bus to Bo, Mr Ayo gave her parting words of encouragement and reassurance.

Today Faith is back with her family in Bo. Mr Ayo, alongside AdvocAid’s paralegals across the country, continues his critical work of monitoring police lock-ups and courts to help women just like her. Many young women like Faith come into conflict with the law just by being in the wrong place, at the wrong time. AdvocAid would not be able to support them without your continued help. On behalf of the people we work with, thank you for your generous donations to AdvocAid.

To get the latest news from AdvocAid please follow us on social media:

https://www.facebook.com/AdvocAidSierraLeone/

https://twitter.com/advocaid

https://www.instagram.com/advocaid/

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