During the 2018 – 16 Days of Activism against Gender Based Violence (GBV) campaign, AdvocAid produced a series of eight short films entitled Voices from Inside– which featured stories of some of the women detained in the Freetown Female Correctional Centre. One of the most important features in some of these stories is that they drew attention to the role that GBV bears in relation to the offense the women are charged with. In Sierra Leone, three Gender Laws were ratified in 2007 portraying a powerful tool to suppress the occurrence of sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) however, practice has shown that this is not enough as little protection is given to women and girls suffering from violence.

Gender inequality is a predominant factor in women’s pathways to offending and when they come in contact with the criminal justice system, they continue to experience intersecting forms of discrimination from gender-specific offenses to lack of consideration of their gender-specific circumstances and needs in sentencing and in their treatment in and after detention. The UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women stated that “there is a strong link between violence against women and women’s incarceration whether prior to, during or after incarceration.” For GBV to be addressed, countries have to provide justice to women and girls in all areas to create sustainable change in their lives. SDG 16 is an accelerator for the entire 2030 Agenda so when governments prioritize and invest in it, then the attainment of all other SDGs is guaranteed. This is why AdvocAid ‘s core focus is pursuing access to justice because failure to reach this goal poses wider challenges for sustainable development and achieving the 2030 Agenda as a whole.

Institutions mandated to provide justice and protect women and girls have continuously failed them especially through impunity for GBV eventually leaving the women and girls to come in contact with Sierra Leone’s patriarchal criminal justice system. This explains why the AdvocAid Woman wahala na prison study established that over 72% of the women that had participated in the study had experienced one type of abuse before prison. Another indicator of SDG 16 is the proportion of unsentenced women detainees as a proportion of the overall prison population. With AdvocAid continuously undertaking monitoring of the detention facilities and courts, the data collected shows that there is a high number of women on pre-trial detention compared to those who have been sentenced. This has translated to an injustice to those women whose incarceration has a linkage to the violence they experienced later resulting in citizens losing trust in the justice system to secure their rights.  

Institutions mandated to provide justice and protect women and girls have continuously failed them especially through impunity for GBV eventually leaving the women and girls to come in contact with Sierra Leone’s patriarchal criminal justice system. This explains why the AdvocAid Woman wahala na prison study established that over 72% of the women that had participated in the study had experienced one type of abuse before prison. Another indicator of SDG 16 is the proportion of unsentenced women detainees as a proportion of the overall prison population. With AdvocAid continuously undertaking monitoring of the detention facilities and courts, the data collected shows that there is a high number of women on pre-trial detention compared to those who have been sentenced. This has translated to an injustice to those women whose incarceration has a linkage to the violence they experienced later resulting in citizens losing trust in the justice system to secure their rights.  

For an organization like AdvocAid, this campaign gives us an opportunity to reveal how national crime prevention policies should consider the unique experiences of women and girls including their victimization, lack of financial resources to afford legal representation, low levels of education and legal illiteracy, so that efforts to address gender based violence experienced by women offenders are largely addressed. In 2017, AdvocAid launched a campaign on the decriminalization of poverty in Sierra Leone which established that the enforcement of petty offense laws such as loitering and non-payment of debts largely targeted and disproportionately affected already marginalized people especially those living in poverty, sex work, petty traders all largely being women. So when a state chooses to pursue prosecutions and long sentences for economic and petty offenses, the state is effectively punishing poverty.

When food security and safety are problems in a country, this is always reflected in its prisons which are overcrowded and underfunded hence failing to adequately feed the prison population, avail hygienic and welfare support. This has affected their nutrition, health and general welfare making it worse for pregnant or breast-feeding detained women, sick detained women and for children detained with a parent. So with the lack of progress on other SDGs like poverty, hunger and health, their intersection with GBV increases women’s vulnerability to the criminal justice system, where a lot of these rights aren’t respected.

So this year, AdvocAid is reinforcing the urgent call to enhance access to justice in order to address the gendered pathways of imprisonment that overwhelmingly intersect with GBV. Here are some of strategies that can be undertaken –

• In order to achieve SDG 5 on gender equality, advancing gender sensitive criminal justice reform is non-negotiable. Some of the ways this can be achieved is through – developing gender-specific alternatives to detention that take into account women’s characteristics, experiences, and needs without risking them to harm. The benefits of such alternatives address the causes of women’s imprisonment; are more cost-effective and also greatly reduce some of the more devastating consequences of detention. Another aspect under this is the developing gender-specific defenses and/or mitigating factors that take into account slow-burning reactions of women and girls that are victims of violence. However, for this to also be achieved, women and girls should be able to turn to fair, effective institutions to access justice and essential services and in the absence of these, injustice and discrimination is perpetuated.
• Having already established that the majority of the women and girls prior to their incarceration have low levels of education and legal literacy, AdvocAid has committed to the attainment of SDG 4 by providing inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for women and girls. AdvocAid paralegals undertake legal outreaches to empower communities with information so that they are aware of their legal rights and are able to defend themselves. While in detention, AdvocAid avails literacy and numeracy classes to the women providing them with stronger prospects and a brighter future upon release and has also fostered university-prison partnerships to provide certificate courses to the women and men in the correctional centers.
• Availing appropriate work and training opportunities to women and girls in contact with the law is equally important as this enables them to earn a living while still in detention facilitating them to support their children’s needs, making them employment attractive and also contributing to their successful reintegration in society. Such programs contribute to the attainment of SDG 8 focusing on promoting sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth hence contributing to the attainment of SDG 1 on ending poverty. At AdvocAid, we have invested in this so that the women can become economically independent as this will then reduce the risk of the recurrence of GBV and recidivism.

There is no doubt that AdvocAid has invested in various initiatives to prevent and address the violence experienced by women and girls and this has been mainly possible because of your recurring gifts towards our work. The goal still remains to strengthen access for justice for women and girls in contact with the law and this is why we encourage you all that share our vision to make a charitable contribution to these causes at – https://www.globalgiving.org/donate/15052/advocaid/