The president of Sierra Leone, a small country in West Africa, signed a law on July 2 that would ban marriages of those under 18 and impose heavy fines on adult spouses.
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The move was a victory for activists who had long fought to stamp out the widespread practice. It goes beyond many similar laws in Africa, experts said, by penalizing people who facilitate marriage.
Around 800,000 girls under the age of 18 were married in Sierra Leone in 2020, UNICEF reported, This represents about one-third of the country’s girls. Half were married by the time they turned 15. About 4 percent of boys were married by age 18, Human Rights Watch reports.
Under the new law, people married as minors can apply for compensation. They also have a way out of their marriages: requesting an annulment.
Betty Kabari, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, praised the approach of criminalizing those who incite marriage, saying, “For me, the strongest aspect is to point out that a minor does not marry in isolation.”
According to the United Nations, at least 12 million girls under the age of 18 are married every year. More than 650 million girls and women were married as children. South Asia has the highest number of child brides, around 290 million, or 45 percent of the world total. Sub-Saharan Africa has around 127 million people, or 20 percent.
A map of child marriages compiled by Girls Not Brides, a global organisation working to end the practice, shows that 16 of the 20 countries with the highest rates are in Africa.
“They are forced to be adults before they are adults,” said Kadijatu Barrie, 26, a student and program coordinator for Strong Girls Evolution, a networking organization for women in Sierra Leone.
Barrie said her family had begun pressuring her to marry when she was 10, and that her father disowned her at 15 for refusing. She was worried she would have to drop out of school.
Under the law, people who marry underage girls can face a 15-year prison sentence or a fine of more than $5,000. That’s a harsh penalty in a country where per capita gross domestic product was about $433 in 2023, the World Bank reports. The law also bans cohabitation, in which an adult lives and has a sexual relationship with a minor. Parents can’t consent to a marriage involving a minor. Officiants can’t preside over one. Guests can’t attend a ceremony. Anyone who “aids or abets” a marriage can face a 10-year sentence or a fine of about $2,500, or both.
The ban is in line with a broader effort in Sierra Leone to promote girls’ rights by keeping them in school and protecting them from genital mutilation. President Julius Maada Bio and his wife, Fatima Bio, pushed for the ban.
““I have always believed that Sierra Leone’s future is female,” Bio posted on social media after signing the law with her daughter at her side..
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