Sierra Leone has passed a historic bill to ban child marriage across the country.<\/p>\n
Save the Children was part of the campaign to criminalise the widespread practice.<\/p>\n
Save the Children Sierra Leone Country Director, Patrick Analo, said this is a historic moment and an extraordinary achievement for children across the country who have campaigned for their rights.<\/p>\n
In his words, \u201cGirls who are married young are not only robbed of their childhoods \u2013 they are robbed of their futures. They experience lifelong harm to their physical and mental health; are barred from opportunities to learn, grow, play and develop; shut out from future educational and economic opportunities that also impact their families and communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cChildren have now stood up and said: \u201cGive us our futures back.\u201d And thanks to them, this will be a new reality for nearly four million children across Sierra Leone.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs well as training child marriage champions across Sierra Leone, Save the Children has worked with First Lady Fatima Maada Bio, the Ministry of Gender and Children\u2019s Affairs, and other organisations to end child marriage in the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Office of the First Lady said the Bill will address enforcement challenges by establishing penalties for violations and calling upon community leaders to support its implementation actively.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy strengthening existing laws and enhancing their enforcement, the bill seeks to create a more protective environment for children, particularly girls.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Prohibition of Child Marriage Bill 2024 seeks to criminalise the act of marrying or entering into a union with a child under the age of 18. It includes provisions for enforcing penalties on offenders, protecting victims\u2019 rights, and ensuring access to education and support services for young girls affected by early child marriage.<\/p>\n
Sierra Leone has one of the highest child marriage, early pregnancy and maternal mortality rates in the world, with about one-third of girls married before the age of 18, and another third giving birth before the age of 19, according to the Ministry of Health.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, a campaigner with Save the Children,19-year-old Kuji , a told the child rights organisation how she managed to stop her 15-year-old cousin Kpemeh\u2019s marriage and support her to return to school.<\/p>\n
This led to Kpemeh also training to be a Save the Children champion and joining her cousin in successfully campaigning to all the chiefs in their district in eastern Sierra Leone to ban the practice.<\/p>\n
Kpemeh said:\u202f\u201cThose of us who are under 18 should steer clear of early marriage. Whenever I share this message, people listen and abandon such practices.\u201d<\/p>\n
Save the Children has been working in Sierra Leone since 1999, initially focusing on family reunification during the war.<\/p>\n
Now the organisation\u2019s primary areas of focus are children\u2019s rights and protection, education, and health.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sierra Leone has passed a historic bill to ban child marriage across the country. Save the Children was part of the campaign to criminalise the widespread practice. Save the Children Sierra Leone Country Director, Patrick Analo, said this is a historic moment and an extraordinary achievement for children across the country who have campaigned for their rights. In his words, […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5173,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oaflad.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5172"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oaflad.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oaflad.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oaflad.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oaflad.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5172"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/oaflad.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5174,"href":"https:\/\/oaflad.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5172\/revisions\/5174"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oaflad.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oaflad.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oaflad.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oaflad.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}