Women in Sierra Leone

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Women in Sierra Leone
Happy woman in Sierra Leone.jpg
Sierra Leonean woman in traditional dress
General Statistics
Maternal mortality  (per 100,000)890 (2010)
Women in parliament 12.4% (2013)
Women over 25 with secondary education 9.5% (2012)
Women in labour force65.7% (2012)
Gender Inequality Index [1]
Value0.633 (2021)
Rank162nd out of 191
Global Gender Gap Index [2]
Value0.672 (2022)
Rank109th out of 146

Sierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a Constitutional Republic in West Africa. [3] Since it was founded in 1792, the women in Sierra Leone have been a major influence in the political and economic development of the nation.

Contents

Sierra Leonean women face extreme gender inequality. [4] They experience high levels of poverty, violence, and exclusion. [4] Nevertheless, they have also played an important role in the education system, founding schools and colleges, with some such as Hannah Benka-Coker being honoured with the erection of a statue for her contributions [5] and Lati Hyde-Forster, first woman to graduate from Fourah Bay College being honored with a doctor of civil laws degree by the University of Sierra Leone. [6]

Early history (1787–1900)

Madam Lehbu, queen of Upper Gaura in 1891. Madam Lehbu Queen of Upper Gaura (cropped).jpg
Madam Lehbu, queen of Upper Gaura in 1891.

With the establishment of the Province of Freedom in 1787, a Sherbro known as Queen Yamacouba was a signatory to the treaty of 1787 which ceded the land to the British. [7]

After the destruction of the Province of Freedom in 1789 and the establishment of Freetown and the Colony of Sierra Leone in 1792, all heads of Nova Scotian Settler households were eligible to vote in the upcoming elections in Freetown and one-third were ethnic African women. [8]

The majority of the ancestors of the Sierra Leone Creole people were repatriated African American, Jamaican Maroon and Liberated African women principally of Akan, Igbo and Yoruba extraction. [9] Creole households in Freetown were different from traditional African ethnic groups in Sierra Leone in that women had property rights and economic freedom and qualified as professionals such as lawyers and doctors in the early twentieth century. [9] This independence gave women the freedom to travel. [9] As they were financially independent, they were able to divorce to improve their lives economically. [9]

From 1830, the women in Sierra Leone were well known for their trading of non-slave-related items. [10] A notable woman trader of the period was Liberated African Betsy Carew who had married a butcher, James Thomas, and sold meat to the army. [11]

The Creole female traders were Christian. [12] Creole women traded along the entirety of the West Coast expanding both their trade and spreading the Christian religion. [12] However, by 1900 European companies began to dominate trade and the Creoles moved to other professions such as medicine and teaching. [12]

In 1878, Madam Yoko became the Queen of Kpaa Mende Seneghum, which had become one of the largest political alliances within the interior. She also went to war against smaller tribes to increase her holdings. [13] In 1898 she supported the British during a rebellion, which also allowed her to expand her holdings. At the time of her death in 1906, her confederacy had become so large it had to be divided into 15 chiefdoms. [14]

T J. Alldridge the first commissioner of Sierra Leone reported signing peace treaties with two women chiefs in 1889. [15]

1900–1970

Adelaide Casely Hayford, Creole woman dressed in Fante attire on her wedding day Adelaide Casely-Hayford, 1903.jpg
Adelaide Casely Hayford, Creole woman dressed in Fante attire on her wedding day

In the city of Freetown, before World War I a woman's position was decided on either class or ethnicity. The Creole people were the dominant ethnic group, with some having access to a better education, the wealthier families had their daughters sent to British finishing schools. The majority of Creole women however fell into the lower classes and their education usually did not go beyond elementary school level in a similar vein to their male counterparts of the same class. [16] : 439 

In 1915, Adelaide Casely-Hayford played an important part regarding women's rights in Freetown giving a lecture on "The rights of Women and Christian Marriage". In 1923 she founded the "Girls Industrial and Technical Training School" with the aim to make women self-sufficient economically. [16] : 440  In 1930 women were given the right to vote, according to local lawyer J. C. Zizer this could be attributed to the numbers of women who now worked in the civil service where their employment terms were equal to their male counterparts. [16] : 442 

In 1938, Constance Cummings-John was the first woman in Africa to be elected to a municipal council and she was the first woman to be elected Mayor of Freetown. Her actions led to the formation of the Sierra Leone Market Women's Union and the Washerwoman's Union. [17] In 1952 she founded the Sierra Leone Women's Movement as well as a newspaper. [18] She founded the Eleanor Roosevelt Preparatory School for Girls and funded it from the proceeds of her quarrying business. [19]

In 1943, Frances Wright was called to the bar, becoming the first female lawyer in Sierra Leone, she was also given an appointment by the government as a magistrate. [20] She was a legal adviser to the British High Commission in Freetown and was considered a champion of women's rights. [21]

In 1957, four women ran for parliament: Patience Richards, Constance Cummings-John, Ellen G.A. Caulker and Mrs. C.T. Williams. Cummings-John and Richards both won their bids but their party filed electoral petitions against them, preventing them from taking their seats. [22]

In 1960 the National Congress of Sierra Leone Women (NCSLW), led by Nancy Steele was founded as a women's wing of the All People's Congress (APC). [23]

Two female candidates stood for parliamentary seats in 1967: Yema Catherine Williams and Julie Keturah Kayode. [22]

In the 1973 general election Nancy Steele and Ester Lily Coker stood for election as independent candidates. [22] By now Sierra Leone had become a one-party state and their campaigns were unsuccessful. [22]

1978 saw Nancy Steele as the sole woman to stand for parliament in the general election. [22]

1970 - 1990

In 1970, out of the 81 chiefdoms in Sierra Leone, 10 were led by women. [24]

In 1989, UNICEF reported that on average a woman in Sierra Leone worked up to 16 hours a day and that the majority were surviving on just one meal per day. There was a maternal mortality rate of 70% primarily from infections and malnutrition. [25]

1990 - 2000

A Mende woman in a Sierra Leone village. Sierra Leone village woman.jpg
A Mende woman in a Sierra Leone village.

During the civil war(1991–2002), it is estimated that 33% of human rights violations were perpetrated against women.

A report by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission stated that thousands of women and girls were abducted from their homes and suffered physical-, sexual- and psychological abuse, including rape and forced pregnancy. [26] Many of them were subject to servitude, slavery and forced cannibalism while others were drugged, tortured and murdered. [26]

Sierra Leonean women and girls who endured forced pregnancies and gave birth to children by their abusers faced severe social consequences, including social isolation. [27]

A number of women and girls became soldiers with the Revelutionary United Front (RUF) during the Civil War. [27]

During the war, a group women organized founded the Sierra Leone Women's Movement for Peace, and using peaceful protests attempted to mediate peace between the warring factions. [28] [29]

2000 - present

On June 14, 2007, the Parliament of Sierra Leone passed three laws which made wife-beating illegal, allowed women to inherit property and protected women from forced marriage. [30] However, in 2014, 63% of women aged 15–49 still held the belief that male partners were justified in hitting and beating their female partners under certain circumstances. [31]

The 2007 Domestic Violence Act is rarely enforced as survivors are required to submit a medical report to the police. The majority of women in Sierra Leone cannot afford to pay the medical examination fee nor can they afford the cost of a lawyer to represent them. [32] Many women in the rural areas of Sierra Leone still are not aware that domestic violence is a crime or of their rights. [32]

In 2012, 10,000 Sierra Leonean men participated in a project called Husband School where they learned about gender equality, domestic violence, reproductive health, female genital mutilation and family planning. [32] Husband School is organized by United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Fambul Initiative Network for Equality Sierra Leone (FINE-SL). [32] Attendance is enforced by local Paramount Chiefs. [32]

The adoption of Registration of Customary Marriages and Divorce Act made 18 the legal age for marriage. [30] Prior to this, there was no minimum age for marriage nor was consent from both parties a prerequisite. [33] In rural Sierra Leone, it was not uncommon for girls under the age of 13 to be given in marriage to elderly men. [33] The law aims to protect women and girls from forced marriage as well as physical, sexual and financial abuse. [33]

In January 2023 the Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Act (GEWE) was signed into law in Sierra Leone. It mandates 30% of public and private positions be reserved for women (including in parliament), provides for increased workplace training opportunities for women, allows women fourteen weeks of maternity leave, punishes discrimination against women who seek access to financial services or resources, requires equal pay for women and men working in the same job, and requires yearly reviews of the GEWE’s implementation in public and private institutions. [34]

Reproductive rights in Sierra Leone

Women in Sierra Leone have extremely limited reproductive rights. [35] Until 2007, women and girls could still be given in marriage by their families without their consent. [33]

Sierra Leone has one of the world's highest maternal and infant mortality rates. [33] [36]

Contraception is used by 16% of adult women in Sierra Leone and 7.8% of teenage girls. [36] [37]

In 2013, Sierra Leone had the 7th highest teen pregnancy rate in the world. [35] 38% of Sierra Leonean women aged 20–24 had given birth to their first baby before the age of 18. [36] [31] Teenage pregnancy is a major contributing factor to Sierra Leone's high maternal mortality rate as teenage mothers have a 40%-60% risk of dying in childbed. [36] Babies born to teenage mothers have a 50% higher risk of being stillborn or dying shortly after birth than babies born to mothers over the age of 20. [36]

Abortion

Abortion is illegal in Sierra Leone under any circumstances. [38] The law banning abortion was passed in 1861, under the British colonial government. [39] In 2015, President Ernest Bai Koroma refused to sign the Safe Abortion Act, due to opposition from religious leaders, and said that the issue should be put to a referendum. Unsafe abortions account for 10% of maternal deaths. [38] [39]

In 2022, the government backed a "risk-free motherhood" bill to legalise abortion. [40] The cabinet of President Julius Maada Bio unanimously supported the bill, which is slated to be submitted to Parliament. [39]

Female genital mutilation

Excluding Sierra Leone Creole women who do not practice or engage in female genital mutilation, 9 out of 10 girls and women in Sierra Leone have undergone female genital mutilation, often as part of the traditional Bundu or Bondu initiation ceremony into the Sande society. [31] Generally in Sierra Leone, where literacy levels among women is less than forty percent, [41] there is still a positive view of female genital mutilation. [31] Two-thirds of girls and women undergo the practice between ages 5 and 14. [31]

Women Pioneers of Sierra Leone

The names are placed in chronological order:

Academics

Politics

Professions

Athletics

Timeline of women's rights in Sierra Leone

1938
1957
2007

On June 14, 2007, the Parliament of Sierra Leone passed three laws which made wife-beating illegal, allowed women to inherit property and protected women from forced marriage. [30]

2012
2015
2023

See also

Related Research Articles

Port Loko is the capital of Port Loko District and since 2017 the North West Province of Sierra Leone. The city had a population of 21,961 in the 2004 census and current estimate of 44,900. Port Loko lies approximately 36 miles north-east of Freetown. The area in and around Port Loko is a major bauxite mining and trade centre. The town lies on the main highway linking Freetown to Guinea's capital Conakry. It also lies on the over-land highway between Freetown and its major airport, Lungi International Airport, although most travellers complete this journey via the much shorter ferry or helicopter transit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fourah Bay College</span> University in Freetown, Sierra-Leone

Fourah Bay College is a public university in the neighbourhood of Mount Aureol in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Founded on 18 February 1827, it is the first western-style university built in Sub-Saharan Africa and, furthermore, the first university-level institution in Africa. It is a constituent college of the University of Sierra Leone (USL) and was formerly affiliated with Durham University (1876–1967).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Limba people (Sierra Leone)</span> Ethnic group, third largest in Sierra Leone

The Limba people are the third largest ethnic group in Sierra Leone. They represent 12.4% of Sierra Leone's total population. They are based in the north of the country across seven provinces, comprising about 12% of the national populations. They’re predominantly found in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adelaide Casely-Hayford</span> Sierra Leone educator and writer 1868–1960

Adelaide Casely-Hayford, MBE, was a Sierra Leone Creole advocate, an activist of cultural nationalism, a teacher and fiction writer and a feminist. Committed to public service, she worked to improve the conditions of black men and women. As a pioneer of women's education in Sierra Leone, she played a key role in popularizing Pan-Africanist and feminist politics in the early 1900s. She set up a Girls' Vocational and Training School in Freetown in 1923 to instil cultural and racial pride for Sierra Leoneans under colonial rule. In pursuit of Sierra Leone national identity and cultural heritage, she created a sensation by wearing traditional African attire in 1925 to attend a reception in honour of the Prince of Wales.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kadi Sesay</span> Sierra Leonean politician

Kadi Sesay is a Sierra Leonean politician, feminist, pro-democracy advocate and the vice presidential candidate of the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP). She served as Sierra Leone Minister of Trade and Industry from 2002 to 2007. She is the founder and Managing Director of Leone Consulting & Advisory Services – for Trade, Investment and Development. She is the mother of CNN International news anchor Isha Sesay.

Sierra Leoneans in the United Kingdom are citizens or residents of the United Kingdom who are of Sierra Leonean descent. In 2001, there were 17,048 Sierra Leonean-born residents of the UK.

Sierra Leonean Americans are an ethnic group of Americans of full or partial Sierra Leonean ancestry. This includes Sierra Leone Creoles whose ancestors were African American Black Loyalists freed after fighting on the side of the British during the American Revolutionary War. Some African Americans trace their roots to indigenous enslaved Sierra Leoneans exported to the United States between the 18th and early 19th century. In particular, the Gullah people of partial Sierra Leonean ancestry, fled their owners and settled in parts of South Carolina, Georgia, and the Sea Islands, where they still retain their cultural heritage. The first wave of Sierra Leoneans to the United States, after the slavery period, was after the Sierra Leone Civil War in the 1990s and early 2000s. According to the American Community Survey, there are 34,161 Sierra Leonean immigrants living in the United States.

Sylvia Olayinka Walmina Oreshola Blyden is a Sierra Leonean journalist, political commentator, newspaper publisher, and former Sierra Leone minister of Social Welfare, Gender and Children Affairs under erstwhile President Ernest Bai-Koroma from 2016 to 2017. She served as Special Executive Assistant to Sierra Leone's former president Ernest Bai Koroma from 2013 to 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frances Claudia Wright</span>

Frances Claudia Wright, OBE, was a prominent Sierra Leonean lawyer during the 20th century. Known as "West Africa's Portia", in 1941 Wright was the first Sierra Leonean woman to be called to the Bar in Great Britain and to practise law in Sierra Leone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Constance Cummings-John</span> Sierra Leonean womens rights activist, politician and teacher (1918–2000)

Constance Cummings-John was a Sierra Leonean educationist and politician. She was the first woman in Africa to join a municipal council and in 1966 became the first woman to serve as mayor of Freetown, Sierra Leone. She was based in London, England, for the latter part of her life.

Hannah Benka-Coker,, néeLuke was an educator from Sierra Leone. She is one of the founders of the Freetown Secondary School for Girls (FSSG) which was established in 1926.

Female genital mutilation in Sierra Leone is the common practice of removing all or part of the female's genitalia for cultural and religious initiation purposes, or as a custom to prepare them for marriage. Sierra Leone is one of 28 countries in Africa where female genital mutilation (FGM) is known to be practiced and one of few that has not banned it. It is widespread in part due to it being an initiation rite into the "Bondo," though initiation rite-related FGM was criminalised in 2019. The type most commonly practised in Sierra Leone is Type IIb, removal of part or all of the clitoris and the labia minora. As of 2013, it had a prevalence of 89.6%.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sierra Leone Creole people</span> Ethnic group of Sierra Leone

The Sierra Leone Creole people are an ethnic group of Sierra Leone. The Sierra Leone Creole people are descendants of freed African-American, Afro-Caribbean, and Liberated African slaves who settled in the Western Area of Sierra Leone between 1787 and about 1885. The colony was established by the British, supported by abolitionists, under the Sierra Leone Company as a place for freedmen. The settlers called their new settlement Freetown. Today, the Sierra Leone Creoles are 1.2 percent of the population of Sierra Leone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">India–Sierra Leone relations</span> Bilateral relations

India–Sierra Leone relations refers to the international relations that exist between India and Sierra Leone. India maintains a High Commission in Freetown. Sierra Leone does not have a resident diplomatic mission in India. The Sierra Leonean embassy in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates is accredited to India.

Murietta Patricia Olu-Williams, OBE was a Sierra Leonean civil servant, the first woman in Africa to achieve the rank of Permanent Secretary in the Civil Service.

Rugiatu Turay is a Sierra Leonean women's rights activist. who is a staunch campaigner against female genital mutilation. She is the founder of The Amazonian Initiative Movement, a nonprofit organization with the main objective of eliminating the cultural practice of female genital mutilation in West Africa.

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The Sierra Leone Women's Movement (SLWM) was a Sierra Leonean women's organization founded by Constance Cummings-John in 1951 in collaboration with women leaders from Sierra Leone markets.

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  32. 1 2 3 4 5 Egbejule, Eromo (27 October 2017). "'No more beatings': Sierra Leone's husband schools take on domestic violence". reuters.com. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  33. 1 2 3 4 5 Rubio-Marin, Ruth (2006). What Happened to the Women?: Gender and Reparations for Human Rights Violations. Social Science Research Council. p. 249. ISBN   978-0979077203.
  34. 1 2 "Sierra Leone passes law to improve women's workplace rights". www.jurist.org.
  35. 1 2 Edilberto Loaiza and, Mengjia Liang (2013). "Adolescent Pregnancy: A Review of the Evidence" (PDF). Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  36. 1 2 3 4 5 Mitchell, Hannah (20 July 2017). "Sierra Leone: teenage girls are dying from unsafe abortions and risky pregnancies". The Guardian.
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  38. 1 2 "Sierra Leone abortion bill blocked by President Bai Koroma again". BBC News. 12 March 2016.
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