Sierra Leone scraps ban on pregnant schoolgirls going to school

2 April 2020 · Carmel Rickard

In a major policy shift, the government of Sierra Leone this week announced that it had agreed to change the law and allow pregnant schoolgirls to continue attending school. The issue has divided society in that country, with the previous government taking a strong stand against mothers-to-be being permitted to go on attending lessons in mainstream schools. However, the new government that took office about two years ago has shown itself willing to make changes on the issue. Pressure to change the law has been mounting, most recently in December 2019, with a decision of the ECOWAS Court holding that the ban was discriminatory and should be scrapped.

Read government announcement

Link to AfricanLII story on ECOWAS Court decision

The decision of the Ecowas court in the matter is still not available on the court’s website

As we reported in December 2019, the ECOWAS court announced a crucial decision in the middle of that month: the judges unanimously found that a ban by Sierra Leone on pregnant girls attending mainstream schools and writing exams, was discriminatory and had to be overturned.

Now the government of Sierra Leone has complied. On Monday of this week the ministry of basic and senior secondary education issued a two-page statement announcing that the 2010 government ban on pregnant girls attending schools had been overturned. It would be replaced by a new policy focused on the ‘radical inclusion’ and ‘comprehensive safety’ of all children in the education system of Sierra Leone.

Commitment

The ministry stressed that the original ban had been the work of the previous government, and that the present government had a different view of things, with a strong commitment to education.

‘In line with this commitment, the Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education under the leadership of … David Moinina Sengeh, hereby announces that the ban on pregnant girls – inherited from the previous administration – is overturned with immediate effect. This decision was taken by Cabinet at its sitting on 18 March 2020.’

Gender equality

The statement added that the decision demonstrated the government’s commitment to accessible and quality education as well as gender equality.

The issue of pregnant girls attending school had been divisive across all of society for the last 10 years. But the President had made clear that his ‘new direction’ had involved both evidence and constitutional process.

A taskforce, convened by the ministry had involved religious leaders, government ministries, national and international development partners, teachers and school administrators, lawmakers and civil society organisations. Among others they consulted the girls ‘most impacted by the ban’, and then they developed recommendations for ‘radical inclusion and comprehensive safety of all children’.

Dignity

The statement ended: ‘Overturning the ban is the first step in building a radically inclusive Sierra Leone where all children – regardless of class, ethnicity, tribe, disability, location, gender, reproductive or parenting status – are able to live and learn in safety and dignity.’

Carmel Rickard

About the author

Recent articles by Carmel Rickard

‘No justification for the unjustifiable’: Lesotho’s ombud slams grand-scale torture, assault in Maseru prison

22 March 2024
Carmel Rickard

Lesotho’s national ombud, Tlotliso Angelina Polaki, has issued a scathing report on massive-scale torture and assaults that took place in Maseru’s central correctional institution during December 2023, leaving about 95% of the inmates of the prison injured, one dead and one who is now wheelchair-bound and will never walk again.

Major court decision on image rights benefits Ugandan soccer players

21 March 2024
Carmel Rickard

Members of Uganda’s national soccer team from the period around 2007/8 have just been awarded a payout against MTN Uganda by the commercial court. The telecom giant had a year-long contract with Proline, the players’ originating development soccer club, allowing it to use the players’ images for advertising. But MTN had continued to use their images even after that contract expired on the basis that it had a sponsorship agreement with Fufa, soccer’s governing body in Uganda. The players then challenged MTN in court, through Proline, and have now won a significant damages award. But the judgment exposed some serious flaws in the way that Fufa has approached the question of using the image rights of its senior players, and the court commented that this is a ‘case study’ for why Fufa needs to sort out its contractual arrangements with senior players.

Executive interference in Ugandan court decisions continues – this time by the justice minister

21 March 2024
Carmel Rickard

Uganda’s minister of justice, Norbert Mao, has taken a leaf straight from the book of the country’s president, Yoweri Museveni. This week, the minister wrote to the principal judge of the Ugandan high court, asking that the judge directly intervene in a matter that has been brought to his attention by an MP on behalf of a constituent. Mao asked for the ‘immediate administrative intervention’ in the matter by the principal judge. Earlier this year, Museveni wrote a similar letter to the chief justice of Uganda, also requesting intervention in a matter, and the CJ later indicated that this was not the first time it had happened.

Is rape by family members treated too lightly by the law?

19 March 2024
Carmel Rickard

The high court has sent the case of a Malawian teenager, charged with raping his 89-year-old grandmother, back to the magistrate’s court for a possible re-trial because the court had wrongly prosecuted a case of rape instead of incest. If convicted in a re-trial, however, Malawi’s incest law could see the accused sentenced to a mere five years. Malawi’s penal code provides for a significant difference between the sentence to be imposed when a man rapes a close family member, and in a case where the two are not related. When they are unrelated, the code provides that a rape offender ‘shall be liable to be punished with death or with imprisonment for life’ (However, Malawi has had what amounts to a moratorium on carrying out the death penalty since 1992.) By contrast, ‘incest by males’, is categorised in the code as a ‘felony’, and anyone convicted ‘shall be liable for imprisonment for five years’. There is an exception: if it is proved ‘that the female person is under the age of 16, the offender shall be liable to imprisonment for life’.

Prominent SA advocates lose battle over conviction in Namibian courts for working without a permit, misleading immigration officials

6 March 2024
Carmel Rickard

Two prominent South African advocates have just lost their last hope of squashing their convictions in the Namibian courts. Johannesburg advocates, Mike Hellens SC and Dawie Joubert SC, had been found guilty on two counts, first, working as legal practitioners without an employment permit, and second, giving false or misleading information to immigration officers when they entered the country in 2019. Though they had gone to Namibia to appear in court in a bail application, they told the immigration officials they were there for a ‘visit’ and for a ‘meeting’. Both appealed against their conviction but they had also asked for a judicial review of the decision. In the high court they lost their appeal but won on the review. The outcome in both matters were taken to the apex supreme court for a final word. In December 2023, they lost their appeal at the supreme court. What would that same court say when the state appealed against the review finding? The supreme court has now given its answer: it found the review, that had favoured Hellens and Joubert, was wrongly decided, and set it aside, awarding costs against the two advocates in both the high court and the supreme court.