fighting for access to justice for women and girls   Donate

AdvocAid is the only human rights organisation in Sierra Leone providing holistic access to justice, legal empowerment and post-detention support to women and girls who come into contact with the law. This often includes the most vulnerable and marginalised women, including commercial sex workers, women working in the informal economy, survivors of abuse, and juveniles. We focus on women and girls due to the distinct disadvantages and abuse they face, recognising gender inequality as a driving factor behind women’s incarceration. AdvocAid has learned an enormous amount from the women and girls we’ve worked with since 2006 about effectively achieve feminist law reform.

From four volunteers when we were founded in 2006, we have built our organisation to a majority female team of 22 full time staff. On top of this, our Board has grown to reflect our national priorities and international connections. We have established a new panel of inspiring Advisors that bring their expertise and knowledge to AdvocAid. And our work has reached through our international network of volunteers, interns, allies and supporters.

In the past 15 years, we have provided legal support to more than 6,000 women and girls, secured the release of 6 women and 3 men from death row, reached over a million women through our award-winning legal education outreach and successfully advocated for new legislation in Sierra Leone.

We secured the establishment of two separate detention facilities for women and the first prison library in Pademba Road Prison. Our police complaints manual strengthened police accountability and we used the process to ensure disciplinary action was taken against police officers who threatened our paralegal when she intervened to stop women being charged bribes to obtain bail.
Sierra Leone has made great progress towards accessing justice and rights for women and girls, but there’s still much work to do. To learn more about the endemic issues facing women in contact with the law in Sierra Leone, read our research report Women na Wahala: the causes and consequences of incarceration here.

IThroughout this year we will be celebrating AdvocAid’s incredible staff, leadership, volunteers and partners. We are going back through our archives to tell some of the stories of the women we have worked with, and we will celebrate all that we’ve achieved to educate, empower, and provide access to justice for women and girls in Sierra Leone.

Every 15th of the month, we will share a case study of Sierra Leonean women and girls in contact with the law that benefited from AdvocAid’s work. Check out our social media to stay up to date with our campaign.