Sierra Leone is on the precipice of making history in its parliament this week. A new bill being debated would see a deadly centuries-old British colonial law abolished and monumental strides made to protect the safety of women and girls.
For a country where sky-high maternal deaths are a national emergency, the safe motherhood and reproductive health care bill is a lifeline. The new legislation would decriminalise abortion and provide that any girl or woman, regardless of economic status, can seek the reproductive care needed from a qualified medical professional – whether that involves the decision to conceive, to access contraception or to make the difficult decision to terminate a pregnancy.
For the women’s movement in Sierra Leone, this is the result of decades of frontline campaigning – from the 2015 Safe Abortion Act that was ultimately blocked by the legislature, to the announcement by the president, Julius Maada Bio, in 2022 of his cabinet’s unanimous backing, through to the parliamentary readings in December. Now, we could see a final vote in the next two weeks.
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