- 4General Principles 4.1 The right to non-discrimination (articles 3 and 26) 100. The laws of Sierra Leone’s guarantee the right to equality before the law and enjoyment of the protection and services provided by the law. In addition, their expressly prohibit discrimination and make provision for the adoption of special measures to guarantee the rights of vulnerable communities, including children and people with disabilities. 101. The Constitution of Sierra Leone expressly provides that the Social Order of Sierra Leone shall be founded on the ideals of freedom, equality and justice. To this end, it guarantees every citizen’s equality of rights, obligations, and opportunities before the law. Moreover it commits the State to direct its policy towards ensuring that every citizen, without discrimination on any grounds whatsoever, shall have the opportunity for securing adequate means of livelihood and commits to the adoption of special measures to secure the care and welfare of, inter alia, the young and disabled. 102. The GoSL has taken a number of targeted legislative measures to equalise previously discriminatory property, inheritance, marriage and divorce colonial and customary laws and to provide targeted protection to those especially vulnerable to discrimination, such as children living with disability and children living in poverty. For example: 34  102.1 Various laws have been enacted to equalize the rights of children born out of wedlock. Section 27 of the Child Rights Act, for example, states that “no person shall deprive a child of reasonable provision out of the estate of a parent, whether or not born in wedlock”. Additionally, the Devolution of Estates Act, 2007 (Act No. 21) secures the property rights and maintenance of children and the surviving spouses of any person who has died intestate through provisions that ensure that they benefit from the deceased estate, regardless of whether the child was born of a lawful marriage, was adopted or whether the family follows customary laws. The National Social Security and Insurance Trust Act (the NASSIT Act, 2001) also makes widows/widowers and their children as primary beneficiaries to benefits due survivors of a deceased NASSIT Pensioner. 102.2 The right to citizenship has been extended, and thus equalized through an amendment to the Sierra Leone Citizenship Act (1973) which grants dual citizenship, not only to Sierra Leoneans falling into a the category of persons “of Negro African descent” but also those whose “mother or father and any of the grandparents of the mother or father is or was a Negro of African descent”. Government of the Republic of Sierra Leone Initial Report on the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child 2002-2014