Sierra Leone outlaws child marriage in bid to protect women and girls

President Julius Maada Bio signed the bill on Tuesday, saying he believed Sierra Leone’s future was female and wanted to give women and girls a platform to reach their full potential. The law would punish men who marry girls under the age of 18 with up to 15 years in prison and fines of up to 50,000 leones—the currency of Sierra Leone. It would also punish those who attend child marriages, saying authorities will presume they are accomplices unless they can prove they did not know that the child was underage.

Was child marriage legal in the country before this? Under a law passed in 2007, girls were not allowed to be married before turning 18. But a separate 2009 law allowed parents to marry off their daughters before they turned 18, according to the organization Girls Not Brides. Roughly 30 percent of girls in Sierra Leone are married before turning 18, and 9 percent of them are married before turning 15, according to the organization.

Dig deeper: Read Emma Waters’ column in WORLD Opinions about how the under-regulated and unaccountable surrogacy industry exposes children to numerous threats.