By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay
To mark the International Day of the Girl Child, Plan International organized up to 500 girls across the country to take over the House of Parliament in Sierra Leone for a day. The symbolic event offered the girls the opportunity to raise their voices against issues like sexual violence.
Girls from all over the country occupied the seats of Parliamentarians in the well of Parliament, where they re-enacted the proceeding leading to the passing of the amended Sexual Offences Act of 2019. The event was coordinated in conjunction with the Sierra Leone Adolescent Girls Network, which has up to 150 organizations that are engaged in campaigning for girls’ rights.
Kadijatu Barrie has been a girl child advocate for nine years. On Friday she was mimicking the Attorney General and Minister of Justice in the House.
“We have issues like child marriage, teenage pregnancy and rape. These are issues that have been affecting us for a long time now. Today we are looking at the Sexual Offences Act. We know Parliament has done well in passing it, but we are using this day to call on the President to sign it so it will become law,” she told Politico after the debate session.
“It is urgent,” she stressed.
Timothy Sam, a youth specialist with Plan International, told Politico that the event showed how much change the country is going through in terms of empowering girls. He also reechoed the same call by Ms Barrie and her colleagues during their mock parliamentary debate.
“This has shown that Sierra Leone is ready to talk about the most difficult things girls are facing in this society. Celebrating the International Day of the Girl Child today, bringing these girls taking over the seat of the speaker, taking over the seat of other parliamentarians, means that business has started. Therefore, we don’t want to take this lightly, we want them to understand that the girls have brought out a salient point today; that they support the Sexual Offences Act that have just been passed by Parliament, and want the President to sign it, because it only becomes law when he signs it,” Sam said.
In response to these calls, the Deputy Minister of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs, Mohamed Haji-Kella, told Politico that the President had signed the bill and they are planning to form an inter-ministerial committee to understand everyone’s responsibility.
“One thing I want to share with the public today is that the President has signed the bill, effectively it has now become a law. And for us as a government, civil society and all those who worked tirelessly for this law, it is a great day for us,” he said.
“We are working in collaboration with other ministries. The first thing we are going to do is to try and get an inter-ministerial coordinating group. We are meeting latest by next week to really know who does what,” Mr Kella added.
Sexual and gender-based violence is a growing menace in Sierra Leone. This year’s celebration captured the essence of protecting girls against these heinous crimes.
© 2019 Politico Online
