ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT AND HUMAN RIGHTS SIERRA LEONE

1. Gender empowerment

What we do: provide information, trainings, awareness raising, community education, monitoring of legal institutions-police stations, courts, prisons and local detention facilities

Our experience working with gender issues has shown that addressing gender equality and women’s empowerment requires strategic interventions at all levels of programming and policy-making

Despite many international agreements, affirming countries, human rights obligations, women and girls are still likely poor and illiterate than men, they usually have less access than men to medical care, property ownership, economic status, training and employment. They are far less likely than men to be politically active and far more likely to be victims of domestic violence The ability of women to control their own fertility is absolutely fundamental to women’s empowerment and equality. When a woman can plan her family, she can plan the rest of her life. When she is healthy, she can be more productive. Woman reproductive includes the right to decide the number, timing and spacing of her children, and to make decisions regarding reproduction free of discrimination. The roles that men and women play in society are not biologically determined. They are socially determined. Although they may be justified as being required by culture or religion, these roles vary widely by locality and change over time. EEHR-SL has found that culturally sensitive can be key to advancing women’s rights issues

Where women’s status is low, family size tends to be large, which makes it more difficult for families to thrive and reproductive health programmes are more effective when they address the educational opportunities, status and empowerment of women. When women are empowered, whole families benefit, and these benefits often have ripple effects to future generation

Main Issues

• Reproductive health: Women, for both physiological and social reasons, are more vulnerable than men to reproductive health problems. Reproductive health problems, including maternal mortality represent a major cause of death and disability for women in developing countries. Failure to provide information, services and conditions to help women protect their reproduction health therefore constitutes gender-based discrimination and a violation of women’s rights to health and life.

 

• Natural resources: Women in developing nations are usually in charge of securing water, food and finances. Therefore, they tend to put into immediate practice whatever they learn about nutrition and preserving the environment and natural resources

 

 

• Empowerment: More women live in poverty than men. Economic disparities persist partly because much of the unpaid work within families and communities falls on the shoulders of women and because they face discrimination in the economic sphere.

 

• Educational empowerment: About two thirds of the illiterate adults in African and in the world are female. Higher levels of women's education are strongly associated with both lower infant mortality and lower fertility, as well as with higher levels of education and economic opportunity for their children.

 

 

• Political empowerment: Social and legal institutions still do not guarantee women equality in basic legal and human rights, access to legal empowerment control of land/property still remains an unanswered questions for women., equality in employment, social and political participation. , Even when women are in parliament and or in governance they are still answerable to men for continuity of their position. Laws against domestic violence are often not enforced on behalf of women.

 

2. EDUCATION

What we do: Advocacy, community enagegements, education, monitoring, trainings, and campaigns for the girl-child education,

Prior to European colonization of Africa, African children were educated solely by their respective communities. The education of the African child started at birth and continued into adulthood." Education was woven into the religious, artistic, and with the advent of Christian and European colonization, this changed for many children. Missionaries set up schools devoted to religious conversion, literacy, mathematics, and/or science. School for children in many African states became a place separate from the community, run by colonizers, in which they learned Western ways of thinking and western education systems. Today, in post-colonial Africa, education varies widely by region and family. Some children do not attend Western schools, others learn in a traditional manner from the community, others do both and some primarily focus on Westernized education.

Investment in the girl child education has a lasting input in girls as the education of male child. Children who go to school are healthier, more self-assured and can more easily assume a profession, and education is the only effective vaccine against HIV/AIDS. Education transforms lives

For most of Africa's children, education represents the only way out of a life of entrenched poverty. Across the continent, millions of children currently subsist on less than 1 dollar day. Only those who can read, write and do arithmetic can hope to get a better paid job when they grow up. Many children in Africa wants go to school, but their families can’t not provide them with the basic educational needs to the primary school entry requirements, Those families that can provide are greatly constrains to continued supporting their children, as a result many either become drop-outs and or victims of teenage pregnancy/early marriage

School is about much more than just job skills. It's playing an increasingly vital role helping children protect themselves against the diseases that can ravage poor communities. Simple information on day-to-day hygiene and prevention saves lives and keeps families together.

It is EEHR-SL intention to provide families with educational support, to keep children in schools, especially the girl-child who faced high rate of educational injustice in their families as to the male child. Also provide school meals wherever possible. Many children in African particularly in rural communities in Sierra Leone go to school without food and or Lunch, as result they do not focused on education. School builds confidence, cohesiveness and community. Educated children are less likely to become victims of violence and abuse. They are more likely to invest in improving their community when they are grown

 

3. FOOD SECURITY

What we do: Our aim is continuous monitoring of food security conditions and market prices, and working with partners to monitor, trainings, campaigns, Report, and analyses activities, creates public awareness campaigns provide guidance, tools and tip to assess needs in different contexts. 

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4. HUMAN RIGHTS

What we do: we do human rights education(on rights and procedures), documentation, training, workshop, and community education. Provide legal information to suspects and accused persons, monitoring of detention facilities.

Human rights are both a cultural and value laden concept, which symbolizes rights, which person is entitled to for no reason other than his or her humanity. Human rights emanate from two broad conceptions of rights, namely negative and positive rights...Negative rights according seek to protect the individual from the coercion of the state and from other individuals. The Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution they note seeks to protect the individual from the power of the state. On the other hand, the positive rights doctrine argues that individuals have “rights to Food, clothing, medical care, education, and housing the underlying assumption. Here is that active and meaningful participation in the affairs of the community is possible. When the individual is not constrained by hunger, poverty, illiteracy and fear these rights represent statements of entitlements rather than protections, which is actionable by the individual. The concept of human rights assumed international status with the emergence of the. United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10, 1948, Objective is to act “as a common standard of achievement for all peoples” (as cited in Alderson 1984:9).

 

5. EEHRSL WOMEN ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT

Investing in women’s economic empowerment sets a direct path towards gender equality, poverty eradication and inclusive economic growth. Women make enormous contributions to economies, whether in businesses, on farms, as entrepreneurs or employees, or by doing unpaid care work at home. But they also remain disproportionately affected by poverty, discrimination and exploitation in this context, gender discrimination means women often end up in insecure, low-wage jobs, and constitute a small minority of those in senior positions. It curtails access to economic assets such as access to land and loans. It limits women participation in shaping their economic and social policies. And because women perform the bulk of household work, they often have little time left to pursue economic opportunities.

Women have the potential to change their own economic status, as well as that of the communities and countries in which they live. Yet more often than not, women’s economic contributions go unrecognized, their work undervalued and their promise unnourished.
Unequal opportunities between women and men continue to hamper women’s ability to lift them from poverty and gain more options to improve their lives. Research shows that inequalities persist in the way paid and unpaid work is divided between women and men; in the fact that women remain the sole caregivers at home, and in their limited access to resources.  What's more, these imbalances slow economic growth.

Women’s economic empowerment – that is, their capacity to bring about economic change for themselves – is increasingly viewed as the most important contributing factor to achieving equality between women and men. But economically strengthening women – who are half the world’s workforce – is not only a means by which to spur economic growth, but also a matter of advancing women's human rights. When governments, businesses and communities invest in women, and when they work to eliminate inequalities, developing countries are less likely to be plagued by poverty. Entire nations can also better their chance of becoming stronger players in the global marketplace.
 

Some Positive Outcomes of Women’s Economic Empowerment:

• Where women's participation in the labor force grew fastest, the economy experienced the largest reduction in poverty rates.

• When women farmers can access the resources they need, their production increases, making it less likely that their families are hungry and malnourished.

• When women own property and earn money from it, they may have more bargaining power at home. This in turn can help reduce their vulnerability to domestic violence and HIV infection.

• When women have access to time-saving technologies – such as a foot-pedaled water pump or a motorized scooter – economic benefits can follow. Those kind of outcomes empower women to become stronger leaders and to more effectively contribute financially to their families, communities and countries.

 

Our solutions

Many international commitments support women’s economic empowerment, including the Beijing Platform for Action, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and a series of International Labour Organization conventions on gender equality. EEHR-SL supports women’s economic empowerment in line with these conventions and with the growing body of evidence that shows that gender equality significantly contributes to advancing economies and sustainable development in smaller and bigger communities in the world

Working with a variety of national and international partners, our programmes promote women’s ability to secure decent assets, and influence institutions and public policies determining growth and development. One critical area of focus involves advocacy to take actions so that women and men can more readily combine employment.

In all our economic empowerment programmes, EEHR-SL reaches out to women most in need, often by community engagements with grass-roots and civil society organizations. Particularly marginalized groups include rural women, domestic workers and low-skilled women. Our aims are higher incomes, better access to and control over resources, and greater security, including protection from violence.

 

6. Women Access to Land

Like many African countries, Sierra Leone has a dual land tenure system, with aspects from the colonial era and customary ownership varying in

proportion, depending on location.

This creates confusion regarding land rights for women.

The 2007 Devolution of Estate Act criminalizes depriving

a woman from inheriting her husband's property after his death.

It recognizes customary marriage, the rights of polygamous spouses,

and imposes penalties for evicting a spouse or child from the marital home.
The inheritance should be shared among surviving family,

with 35 percent going to the spouse, 35 percent to the children,

15 percent to parents and 15 percent in line with any customary laws.

But the act only recognizes an individual’s right to land, not a family’s, and the vast majority of Sierra Leonean women live under traditional land tenure structures that do not recognize a woman’s right to own property.

While statutory law governs the capital, Freetown, and its surroundings, customary law - under the heads of ruling families known as paramount chiefs - governs the provinces. Paramount chiefs, the “custodians of the land”, are generally men and most ethnic groups do not allow women to inherit land and property.  Customary law applies in 12 of Sierra Leone’s 14 districts.

“The land tenure system in the rural areas actually affects women the most,” said Michael Luseni, the founder and Director of Centre for Economic Empowerment and Human Rights Sierra Leone a local non-profit organization. “Women use the land more. But when it comes to ownership, women do not own the land.”

According to the US State Department’s 2011 Investment Climate Statement, agriculture accounts for over half of Sierra Leone’s income, up to 80 percent of the country’s agricultural workforce are women, and women farmers directly affect 40 percent of the national revenue

Challenges to women’s right to land
culture and traditions continue to support male inheritance of family land.” It also underscores the lack of sufficient representation of women in institutions that deal with land. Women’s rights under communal ownership is 20not defined, [thus] allowing men to dispose of family land without consulting them”.

The following are a few examples of how these problems play out in real life: At a landowners meeting convened by Addax Bioenergy in February 2012  it was disclosed that of the 153 land owners’ representatives that “engage” with the company only one is female. The company leased land from 51 villages in northern Sierra Leone for ethanol production;

In 2013, the men of a certain village in Lunsar, northern Sierra Leone agreed to lease to an investor the entire supply of arable land in the village. The women wanted to retain some of the land to continue their farming but the men refused. They were more interested in the $5 per acre offered by the company. Besides, according to one of the leaders, “land transaction is a man’s business and not a woman’s affair”. The deal eventually fell through;

A few months after the death of her husband in Kono, eastern Sierra Leone, a widow and her children were kicked out of the family home by the late husband’s relatives. They took charge of the farms that she and her husband had developed over many years leaving her with nothing. The children dropped out of school to help their mother petty trade to eke out a living.

Stories of women facing some form of land related exploitation are endless. As could be seen from the examples, the challenges to women’s use, access and control over land are multiple and diverse. Interestingly, there are existing laws that provide some level of protection for women. For example, the Devolution of Estate Act 2007 stipulates that surviving spouses have the right to reside during their lifetime in any family property, chieftaincy property or community property in which they co-habited with the deceased as their matrimonial home. Unfortunately however, many of these important provisions remain in the books and are never brought to life for ordinary people.

However, the large majority of women farmers do not have full access to, or control of, property and land. They work on family, chieftaincy or community property, which is not protected under Sierra Leone’s state laws. 12 of 14 districts in Sierra Leone are governed by customary law, where paramount chiefs, the “custodians of the land”, allocate land to individuals or families, and most ethnic groups in these districts do not allow women to inherit land and property.

Many of these women also live in rural communities where tradition dictates that women are themselves the property of men, leading to situations where they are both unable to own their own property and face the risk of violent or abusive situations if they attempt to gain economic independence.

 

EEHRSL Roles and Activities

 

EEHRSL provides a simple and useful categorisation role in the policy process:

• Monitors – keeping policy ‘honest’, monitoring implementation and keeping track of events which shape new policies

• Advocates – lobbying (direct contact with politicians and government officials), building strategic coalitions and public support, representing views of particular groups and using information strategically to democratise unequal power relations/improve living conditions of less powerful groups (Women, Children and the poor)

• Innovators – developing and demonstrating ways of doing things differently and highlighting policy value being missed

• Service providers – direct action to fulfil service needs, especially to poor, marginalised and under-served groups. Direct engagement with communities, through coordination with NGOs, networking and the dissemination of information, Although the networks involved in the functional specialisation, despite current shifts ‘upstream’ from service provision to engagement with policy, the EEHRSL engage directly with Local communities and with their immediate concerns and needs if they are to gain legitimacy for advocacy and monitoring. Orientation towards innovation capacity building and service provision

Nevertheless, as we illustrate below, the nature of the services provided by our organisation has changed from more welfarist service delivery to helping communities promote their own interests and meet their own needs. However, this shift is by no means representative of the majority of other NGOs in Sierra Leone, which continue to be oriented towards service provision rather than rights advocacy. Many activities serve more than one role or function but there is a useful distinction to be made between activities which are primarily directed at advocacy or monitoring and those oriented towards innovation, capacity building and service provision.

 

 

HOW DO EEHRSL MAKE A DIFFERENCE?     

 

                                                 

Roles in policy process

 

Activities

Monitoring and advocacy

• Direct lobbying (informal and formal contacts)

• Building strategic coalitions (different levels from community to international)

• Mobilising public support (use of media, Community engagements, demonstrations)

• Research/collecting information as a basis for monitoring and advocacy

 

Innovation, capacity building and service provision

•  Conflict resolution methods

• Participatory methods

• Delimitation’ of community land

• Registration of community lands

• Group formation/leadership training

• Channelling requests for support from communities

• Information and training on land and housing issues

 

Activities to Promote Land Rights in Sierra Leone

Advocacy and Monitoring

EEHRSL lobby using informal contacts with government and politicians, but also use the media to voice opinions on land issues for marginalised and the poor in Sierra Leone. This is seen as being an effective strategy which has only become possible since the increase in freedom of the press in Sierra Leone

At the national level, EEHRSL has engaged in Consultations, research and information dissemination. The organisation is in the process of building up its communication network through its website. EEHRSL has carried out research on alternative forms of land tenure and housing standards, packaging information for different groups, including policy makers, practitioners and citizens. This has involved producing three ‘kits’, including one on land. EEHRSL has had a key role in bringing together different stakeholders’ views, leading to the revision of the Building Codes in 2013 and has recommended a new draft housing policy. At city level, NGOs and other development actors who have skills on land issues, by organising forums, networking and exchanging experiences in the area of urban land and housing at city, national and international levels. The city level networking is done in close collaboration with government administrators.

EEHRSL lobbies and participates in National committees, supports actions that promotes women and the poor access to land, provides information tailored to different groups of policy makers and aims to strengthen cooperation among members. The organisation also networks with various international organisations working on issues affecting local communities. By engaging in researchers, trainings, its key concern is to come up with policies which reconcile competing natural resource needs. It focuses on existing capacities within resource-dependent communities as well as building new capacities in response to emerging conflict over natural resources.

Innovation, capacity building and service provision –we have hold training courses for state employees, such as district administrators, NGOs, Land owners, women groups and the private sector. The land campaign (2013-2014) was directed at civil society groups, land owners, women’s groups and state agencies in Kono, Tonkolili and Bombali districts; they were better informed about land laws, and the devolution of estate Act, we continue to carry out dissemination work at community level. Land campaign materials produced in local languages. We have created land associations groups in the three districts, although the associations have wider functions in relation to the productive use of a range of land issues in their communities, They served as organised channels to voice community concerns in the case of land conflicts, the association participate in efforts to resolve land conflicts. With Training and technical support from EEHRSL.

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7. Child Marriage

 

Why Does Child Marriage Persist?

Although most countries have passed laws declaring 18 as the minimum legal age for marriage, too often the laws are not enforced and social, economic, and cultural realities perpetuate the practice. Certain risk factors, such as poverty, low levels of education, and religion, are directly correlated with higher rates of child marriage. Poor families have few resources to support healthy alternatives for girls, such as education, or even to feed and clothe them, and economic gains to families in the form of a bride price may act as further motivation for child marriage.

 

EEHRSL conducted a survey of 61 communities in the northern region, women between the ages of 19 and 25 who attended primary school were less likely to marry by age 18 than women without a primary education. The same survey found that in the south, women with secondary education were 92 percent less likely to be married by their 18th birthday than women who only attended primary school. As already mentioned, residency within certain regions in a particular region may put girls at higher risk for child marriage. At the same time, there are social and cultural norms that exert pressure on families to marry daughters at young ages. Parents may worry that if they do not marry their daughters according to local expectations, they will be unable to marry them at all. They may also believe that marriage will ensure their daughters’ safety by preventing premarital sex and out-of-wedlock pregnancy. And traditional cultural norms of older men marrying young, virgin girls to prove their masculinity continue to drive this behavior. These factors must all be taken into account in developing interventions that work to end child marriage and its devastating outcomes

 

Promising Approaches

 

To be as effective and transformative as possible, interventions to eliminate child marriage must span multiple sectors and include different approaches, such as increasing education and income, creating safe spaces for girls, increasing family planning and reproductive health knowledge and access to services, resources mobilisation for NGOs working with communities (men and women) to change norms, and developing media messages.

in rural areas, where child marriage generally occurs, customary authorities are often considerably more accessible and familiar to people than the formal justice system. formal legal structures may seem foreign, expensive, and difficult to understand for both adults and children, whereas most adults are familiar with customary bylaws, chiefs’ customary courts (or “kangaroo courts”), and the Local Court system. While formal law enforcement officers may be many miles from a rural village, customary authorities usually live in the communities they serve, and most people know the customary leaders in their community by name. Consequently, many rural Sierra Leoneans favor the customary system over the formal legal system, which, as described above, is often inaccessible, expensive, unfamiliar, and limited in its practical capacity to assist people in rural communities. People identify culturally with customary norms and are more likely to feel compelled to abide by them than by formal law. Furthermore, because chiefs and Local Courts are far more equally distributed throughout rural communities than are formal law enforcement officers, customary bylaws are often enforced more regularly than formal laws. “People are afraid of small-small law, more so than formal law, because formal law doesn’t always have punishments,” said one Local Court member.