By: Alusine Rehme Wilson
Despite efforts made by Government and child rights activists to curtail early marriage of girls, families in distant towns and villages of the northern province of Sierra Leone are trading their teenage daughters into early marriages by way of escaping economic hardship during this COVID-19 pandemic period.
This act is an attempt to frustrate all efforts to end child marriage in Sierra Leone even though the imperative recommendation of Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) 395 states that, ‘’…the Government enact legislation making it a criminal offence to permit, authorize and assist in the marriage of children under 18 years of age.
Since the pandemic struck several economic and social activities have been put to a stall still in Africa and the wilder world. In Sierra Leone, the pandemic has crippled previous advancements made by Government to promote Gender Rights and to protect the Girl Child against traditions, myths and cultural practices. These efforts now seem to be eroding as a result of the economic havoc caused by the Corona virus on families especially in remote areas.
Activists in the region said that before the outbreak of COVID-19, early marriage of under-18 girls in the county had declined from an initial 56 percent in 2006 to 39 percent in 2017.
This they said was a major achievement but complained that the economic effect of the global pandemic is letting parents pile pressure on their teenage daughters especially school girls in the provinces to get married.
At Kabombeh village in Bombali District, a 13 year old girl who preferred to be called Sarah explained that in March, 2020 her parents forced her to accept a suitor that is deemed to be her grandfather.
Sarah, pregnant for about 28 weeks, recalled that she did tell her parents that she was still schooling and marring at her age will kill her dream of writing the National Primary School Examination (NPSE) in 2021, but her parents ignored her excuses and they presented a compelling reason stating that they intended to use her dowry worth around Le 800,000 ($80) to buy fertilizer to boost their farm work. This was a decision between the future of a promising girl child and the desire to bolster subsistence farm work. At this point it became apparent that the latter would prevail.
In a bid to lure her into accepting their demand, Sarah said that her parents threatened to disown her if she refused to be married to Pa. Osman alias Poor-man size, who is a famous business man from the nearby village.
Overwhelmed with fear of being disowned, the young girl reluctantly gave in to marriage proposal and her parents speedily handed her hand in marriage in April 2020 during the first day of the national lockdown. Sarah’s dream of getting education came to an abrupt end.
Sometimes some teenagers manage to escape such unfortunate situations with the help of supportive relatives or friends but such support is temporal says Aminata Samura, a Girl Child Advocate in Kabala.
In another case, Umu Marrah was just 16 and had only completed her Junior Secondary School (JSS) education when her parents said they could no longer afford to pay her Senior Seconday School (SSS) one school charges. An investor in timber business in Falaba offered the said amount, dashed the family two bags of 50kg rice plus an extra Le 1,000,000 ($100) for up keep.
“One night, my parents called me in the siting room and told me that a God sent individual wants my hand in marriage noting that Umu, you know our family is broke and this man wants to marry you and help you as well,” she explained.
Umu further revealed that her parents told her not to reject the man otherwise they would throw her out of the house and let her taste the bitterness of street life.
Umu was stunned by the unrealistic demand of her parents and as a child she was constrained to turn over the tide. Gripped with fear, she accepted the marriage proposal without knowing that the man had two other wives. Competition for money and attention developed among Umu and her mates. Her husband would usually leave her in solitary conferment with no cash to even buy food.
She repeatedly complained to her parents who told her to suppress and stomach the pains of her marital home. Tired with the treatments from her husband and quarrels from her mates, in August, 2020 Umu managed to escape with the help of an ambulance driver who dropped her at Kamabai, a village in Bombali District where her childhood friend’s mother was ready to take her in.
Till the time this interview was conducted, Umu had not been able to see nor hear from her parents. She said she was determined not to return to the marriage but to remain focused on how to become a hairdresser at a saloon in Kamabai.
In all of this, the country’s first lady, Fatima Maada Bio knows firsthand the pains meted on teenagers and has been working to end rape, early marriage and other forms of violence against girls with her “Hands off our Girls” campaign since her husband took office in 2018. She has since vowed to help teenage girls believe that: “Early marriage in all forms is legalized rape."
Police spokesman in the North, Abdul Rahman Sankoh said that cases are not reported because families usually agree to the marriages whether the brides are willing or not.
This situation calls for robust government effort to ensuring that perpetuators of violent crimes and all forms of abuses against women and girls in Sierra Leone are fully subjected to the penalties of such crimes as prescribed by the three Gender Acts of Sierra Leone and the newly instituted laws on all forms of discriminations and gender-based violence against women and girls in the county.
This will help to enhance transitional justice by way of fulfilling recommendation 396 which requires that: “the enactment of legislation should be accompanied by an education campaign, which highlights the negative aspects of marriages of children, in particular girls under the age of 18.”
In addition, recommendation 397 points out that: ‘’the Commission calls on the Ministry of Social Welfare and Gender Affairs and civil society to monitor this issue particularly in the Northern provinces and take steps to prosecute those who violate such a law.’’
This story was produced with support of the Media Reform Coordinating Group – Sierra Leone (MRCG-SL) with funding from Africa Transitional Justice Legacy Fund (ATJLF).
This is really disturbin
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