Sierra Leone: Government passes The Prohibition of Child Marriage Bill 2024

Sierra Leone’s parliament has approved The Prohibition of Child Marriage Bill, 2024 (“the Bill”). The Bill marks a historic shift in Sierra Leone’s legal landscape, providing for penalties for offenders of child marriage, protecting victims’ rights, and ensuring access to education and support services for affected children.

Previously, Sierra Leone had conflicting laws which effectively enabled child marriage – the Child Rights Act 2007 set the minimum legal age of marriage at 18 years, but the Customary Marriage and Divorce Act 2009 allowed children to be married with parental consent, and did not stipulate a minimum age of marriage. The passing of the Bill now establishes 18 years as the minimum legal age of marriage.

According to Girls Not Brides, a collective of civil society organisations that work to end child, early and forced marriages and unions, 30% of girls are married before the age of 18 and 9% before the age of 15 in Sierra Leone. This reflects the persistence of the practice in many countries across Africa in recent years. There is widespread agreement that a comprehensive approach is needed to address the root causes of child marriage. Child marriages laws must be accompanied by government and civil society efforts to transform the attitudes and societal norms that systematically entrench the lack of social, economic, and political freedom for girls and women. The provisions in the Bill that provide support services to affected girls and access to education are certainly a step in the right direction to achieving this.

• The Bill is available here.
• The Child Rights Act 2007 is available here.
• The Customary Marriage and Divorce Act 2009 is available here.

The information contained in this note is for general guidance on matters of interest and does not constitute legal advice. For any enquiries, please contact us at [email protected].