91.
The GoSL has taken these issues seriously and sought to address them at the highest
level. The reduction of teenage pregnancies is identified a priority in the Agenda
for Prosperity and it is the focus of a national multi-sectoral campaign led by the
President. The latter campaign is discussed in more detail later in the report under
the heading of Health and Welfare. In addition, the GoSL has, together with various
partners, especially at a local level, engaged in advocacy related to the harmful
consequences of early marriage and sexual debut and around the prohibition against
the practice in terms of new laws. For example, the MSWGCA has supported the
establishment of Community Advocacy Groups in all chiefdoms. Former traditional
birth attendants have been recruited and trained as change agents to advocate for
children’s rights in their chiefdoms, including advocating for and monitoring that
no children marry. A further measure supporting the enforcement of the Child
Rights Act taken by the Inter Religious Council of Sierra Leone was to facilitate the
development and enforcement of bye-laws that prohibit early marriage through a
process of dialogue and consultation with communities. Additional evidence-based
programmes and policies are being developed and scaled up to address social norms
that perpetuate the practice as well as provide life skills and livelihood support to
empower adolescent girls and poor households. In 2013 a livelihoods partnership
reached over 6,000 adolescent girls through 200 adolescent clubs in four districts.
92.
The various initiatives have made an initial positive impact on the rate of early
marriage, which for girls below 15 years declined by nine percentage points (from
27 percent to 16 percent) and by 12 percentage points for those under 18 years (from
62 to 50 percent) between 2005 and 2010. The percentage of married young women
between the ages of 15 and 19 years declined from 36 percent to 23 percent and
polygamy from 43 percent to 34 percent between 2005 and 2010 (Statistics Sierra
Leone and UNICEF, 2011).
3.4 Minimum age of employment / child labour
93.
Child labour has long been widely practiced in Sierra Leone, driven in large measure
by high levels of poverty and customary laws, practices and attitudes. Many children
are also involved in the worst and most harmful forms of child labour, including
quarrying, street hawking and carrying heavy loads from farms and villages to market
centres. Child labour, unlike “child work” which can include simple household
chores and other domestic tasks, negatively impacts on children’s education, health
and survival.
94.
The GoSL recognizes and has taken active steps to address the harm caused by
child labour as well as its international and regional obligations to take measures to
eliminate its practice, including the setting of a minimum age for participation in
child labour and hazardous work. The National Policy for Child Wellbeing, 2005 and
the Child Rights Act, 2007 commit the GoSL to the protection of children against
this form of economic exploitation. The Child Rights Act sets a minimum age for full
time employment at 15 years and limits the type of work children can be engaged
in. It prohibits children under 18 years from being employed in hazardous work that
affects the child’s health, safety or morals. It makes transgression of these limits a
criminal offence. The Mines and Minerals Act, 2009 also prohibits and criminalizes
the engagement of children in labour in the mines by the holder of a mineral right.
The draft Child Welfare Policy further supports the prohibition of harmful child
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Government of the Republic of Sierra Leone Initial Report on the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child 2002-2014