The same life, the same plight: The current human rights situation of women in Sierra Leone

Abstract

Women and girls were primarily abducted to be the sex slaves of the rebels and to perform slave labor. The survey conducted found that 33 percent of the interviewees reporting warrelated sexual violence had been abducted and 15 percent had been subjected to sexual slavery. Consistent with fairly common practice among the Sierra Leonean male population, many rebels had polygamous "marriages" with abducted women whom they had forced to "marry" them. Rebels also changed "wives" frequently when they tired of them or when their "wives" were too ill to perform their tasks as a consequence of the brutality that these women were often subjected to. Customary law is defined by the 1991 constitution as "the rules of law by which customs are applicable to particular communities in Sierra Leone." Although there are sixteen ethnic groups in Sierra Leone, a general treatment of customary law is justified, as there are many fundamental similarities between the customary laws of these ethnic groups. Customary law has not been written down or codified and is only applied by the local courts. These courts operate in the provinces and not in the Western Area, which is historically where the Krio and the British colonizers settled. A chairman presides over the local courts with the assistance of chiefdom councillors who are knowledgeable in customary law. Under customary law, when a case is brought to the local court, the perpetrator is generally required to pay a substantial fine to the victim's family as well as to the chiefs. "Virgin money" is payable to the victim's family if the victim was a virgin. In some communities, particularly the Muslim ones, the victim is forced to marry the offender, as a girl who is not a virgin is considered less eligible for marriage. Traditionally, in some ethnic groups, both the victim and the perpetrator will be made to undergo a purification ceremony. For the victim, the purification ceremony is supposed to restore her virginity and for the perpetrator to cleanse the guilt. Any man who invades the husband's exclusive sexual rights over a wife compensates the husband, and not the wife, for "woman damage"!