Implementation beyond banning: the prohibition of child marriage in Sierra Leone
Posted: 21 October, 2024 Filed under: Sorie Bangura | Tags: ACRWC, African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, child education, child marriage, Child Rights Act, children’s rights, early marriage, educational level, end child marriage, girls, income poverty line, lack of investment, poverty, Prohibition of Child Marriage Act 2024, reproductive health, Sexual Offences Act, Sierra Leone, teenage pregnancy, toilet facilities, Universal Periodic Review Leave a comment
Author: Sorie Bangura
Manager, Save the Children, Sierra Leone
In 2022, during the third cycle of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on Sierra Leone, the UPR working group urged Sierra Leone to ‘allocate adequate budgetary resources for the promotion and protection of children’s rights; harmonising laws to prevent and end child marriage, and undertaking comprehensive awareness-raising on the negative consequences of child marriage on girls; and enforcing the Child Rights Act and enabling the bill on the prohibition of child marriage.’ Fast forward to June 2024, Sierra Leone has enacted the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act 2024. The Act which prohibits and criminalises marrying anyone under the age of 18 also seek to protect the rights and development of girls which has long been violated and hindered.
Ending child marriage: A call to action
Posted: 13 October, 2020 Filed under: Mary Izobo | Tags: 11 October, ACRWC, Africa, African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, both boys and girls, child marriage, complications from pregnancy, financial freedom, fundamental human rights, Gender discriminatory norms, gender-sensitive laws, girl child, ICRW, International Council of Research on Women, International Day of the Girl Child, My voice, our equal future 2 Comments
Author: Mary Izobo
International Human Rights Lawyer and Gender Advocate
Introduction
The International Day of the Girl Child is commemorated globally every year on 11 October since 2012 to highlight the injustices girls face based on their gender, while advancing the fulfilment of their rights, development and wellbeing. The United Nations theme for the International Day of the Girl Child 2020 is ‘My voice, our equal future.’ There is a specific emphasis on the girl child because there is a direct form of discrimination against girls who are often deprived of their fundamental human rights. Millions of girls from birth are discriminated against on the grounds of sex and gender. This year, as we commemorate the International Day of the Girl Child, it is important to bring to the world’s attention, child marriage which continues to be an unending anathema that serves as a challenge in the fulfilment and enjoyment of the rights and welfare of the girl child.
Child marriage is the marriage of a child before he or she turns 18 years of age. It is a global phenomenon that continues to obstruct the wellbeing of young boys and girls. Child marriage affects both boys and girls, but nine in ten children married off before they turn 18 years are girls. Every two seconds, a girl is married off, before she is physically, psychologically or emotionally developed enough to become a bride or mother. An estimated 650 million women and girls in the world today were married before they turned 18 years and one-third of these women and girls were married off before they turned 15 years. According to United Nations International Children Emergency Fund (UNICEF), out of the world’s population, 1.1 billion are girls and 22 million of them are married off before they attain adulthood.
Dealing with statelessness in sub-Saharan Africa: The way forward
Posted: 13 May, 2015 Filed under: Michael Addaney | Tags: ACRWC, African Union, armed conflicts, Burundi, citizenship, civil society, conflicts, Cote d'Ivoire, CRC, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), economic migration, education, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Global Trends Report, health services, Kenya, Madagascar, statelessness, strategic advocacy, sub-Saharan Africa, Tanzania, UNHCR, United Nations, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Zimbabwe 1 Comment
Author: Michael Addaney
Student (MPhil Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa), Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria
‘Statelessness is a profound violation of an individual’s human rights. It would be deeply unethical to perpetuate the pain it causes when solutions are so clearly within reach.’
– Antonio Guterres, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
Statelessness as a legal problem has far reaching political and economic challenges which have attracted rising attention from scholars, human rights activists and international organisations in recent years. Officially, statelessness means a person who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law. The UNHCR started collecting data on stateless persons in the world in 2006 and confirmed in 2011 that the number of stateless persons around the world is in excess of 10 million despite conceding that obtaining the actual statistics is difficult.
The most affected are regions that have suffered or are experiencing armed conflicts or economic migration. Large numbers of stateless population are largely due to policies and laws which discriminate against foreigners despite their deeper roots in the states concerned. For instance, more than 120 000 persons in Madagascar are stateless on the basis of discriminatory citizenship laws and administrative procedures. Moreover, about 170 000 Burundian refugees who fled their country in 1972 are recognised as stateless in Tanzania despite cogent attempts by international and local organisations to have the situation rectified.
Child marriage as ‘security’?
Posted: 13 October, 2014 Filed under: Thato Motaung | Tags: ACRWC, Africa, African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC), African traditions, arranged marriages, CEDAW, child marriage, conscription, Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, Eritrea, military service, national service, nternational Day of the Girl Child, Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, sexual harassment, torture, traditional beliefs, UNICEF, Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1 Comment
Author: Thato Motaung
Researcher, Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria
International Day of the Girl Child: 11 October 2014
“The female soldiers did everything we did. In addition they were forced to cook for the commanders, wash their clothes, and some were forced to have sex with them.” – Khalid al-Amin on life as a conscript, Aljazeera interview – Escaping Eritrea’s ‘open prison’ (3 October 2014)
The legal age at which a girl can get married in Eritrea is 18 years, however many marry earlier as an act of great desperation.
Child marriage is prohibited in numerous international human rights instruments, namely; the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC) and in the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa. That said, child marriage is nevertheless rampant on the African continent. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) figures (2013), out of the 20 countries most affected by child marriage, Africa hosts 15. ‘Typical’ drivers of child marriage include customary/traditional beliefs, desire for economic gain or to provide security. I hesitated at the mention of ‘security’ because how does a minor gain security from being forced to engage in sexual reproduction, childbearing and birth within a completely unprepared body and mind?
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