The Ecowas Community Court has ordered the Sierra Leone government to scrap a controversial policy banning girls who are pregnant from attending mainstream schools.
The policy which was introduced in 2015, also prohibits them from participating in public examinations.
The government at the time said the move was necessary because allowing pregnant girls to attend classes will serve as a bad example to other girls.
The issue provoked widespread condemnation, both locally and international.
The UK-headquartered international campaign group, Equality Now, filed a law suit at the ECOWAS in May 2015, in collaboration with several other local and international campaign groups.
After months of trial, the court on Thursday passed the verdict which found Sierra Leone guilty of implementing an “illegal” policy that violated the rights of the girls.
The court said the move went against all the treaties relating to human rights signed by the country.
The policy was first introduced by the Ernest Bai Koroma administration at the height of the 2014/2016 Ebola epidemic, when teenage pregnancy cases spiked to an unusual level.
The Julius Maada Bio administration decided to continue with it on the basis of the same argument its predecessor fronted.
Among other things, the court ruling also ordered the Sierra Leone government to undertake several reforms geared towards improving on learning opportunities for girls and embark on public sensitization to remove negative public perceptions against girls who are pregnant.
The government was also told to implement measures that prevent or reduce incidences of teenage pregnancy.
Equality Now and its partner organizations in a statement described the court’s ruling as victory for the girls.
They said it was also an example not just for the West African region but the African continent as a whole, where discrimination on the basis of gender differences abound.
“This victory belongs to the girls in Sierra Leone who have been degraded and dehumanized because of their status since 2014. Now our government in Sierra Leone has no option but to comply with their obligations as declared by the Court,” Hannah Yambasu, Executive Director of WAVES, one of the local partners of Equality Now, was quoted in the statement.
KC/as/APA