By Kemo Cham
Two years after it was filed at the regional court, a case challenging Sierra Leone’s laws on loitering has had its first day before judges at the Community Court of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
The women’s rights campaign group, AdvocAid Sierra Leone, is challenging the legality of the piece of legislation that has its roots to the British colonial era, which it argues is discriminatory and targeting vulnerable and marginalized communities.
AdvocAid is backed by the Banjul-based Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa (IHRDA), with the legal expertise of Sierra Leonean lawyer Eleanor Thompson.
The activists say the laws violate provisions under the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, such as the right to equality and non-discrimination and the right to freedom of movement.
The case was first filed in March 2022.
The law which falls under Section 7 of the Public Order Act of 1965 provides that any person found loitering in or about anywhere, without any convincing explanation, is considered an idle and disorderly person.
The offence is punishable by up to a month’s jail term.
The police have been accused of using violence and rape against people, mostly women, arrested for the offence. Suspects, particularly sex workers, have alleged police using the law to extract bribe from them whenever they are arrested. Those unable to pay bribes claimed they have been coerced into having sex to avoid spending the night in a police cell. Others alleged they were violently raped.
AdvocAid has in the past represented many such victims in court.
“It’s a momentous day in our fight against discrimination and oppression,” the organization said in a statement issued via its facebook page on Thursday, May 2nd, 2024, on the first day of hearing of the matter before the court that sits in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.
