•

Sierra Leone outlaws child marriage with new bill

reuters.com

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/sierra-leone-outlaws-child-marriage-with-new-bill-2024-07-02/

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/17602063

•

"Under the law, any man who marries a girl under the age of 18 could face at least 15 years in prison and a fine of around $4,000. Parents or those attending such marriage ceremonies could also face fines"

Good news. Remove the coulds and I'm really convinced. I hope they enforce those laws as strict as they can.

breakingcups

•

I also wish they'd worded it in a way where it'd be illegal for women to marry children too, just to cover all bases.

nickhammes

•

I can't find the text of the new law in 5 minutes of searching, but from looking at a variety of reports, it seems like this law removes loopholes that were being used to get parental permission for marriages involving children. I suspect they just wrote it this way because the bulk of the issue is older men marrying teenage girls, and that is a thing it does ban.

astropenguin5

•

I don't actually know but it is fairly likely that the definition of 'man' in the law is defined as any person. It is that way in the US at least, though most new laws and such use person there are quite a few old laws that use such wording to describe any person.