{"id":964070,"date":"2024-07-03T06:41:42","date_gmt":"2024-07-03T06:41:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/dm-simulator-v2\/?p=964070"},"modified":"2024-07-03T06:41:42","modified_gmt":"2024-07-03T06:41:42","slug":"sierra-leone-bans-child-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elections.sabc.co.za\/elections2024\/sierra-leone-bans-child-marriage\/","title":{"rendered":"Sierra Leone bans child marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sierra Leone has officially banned <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sabcnews.com\/sabcnews\/child-marriage-appears-to-be-on-the-rise-in-tanzania-despite-several-interventions\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">child marriage<\/a> with President Julius Maada Bio signing into law a Bill to end the practice that remains widespread.<\/p>\n<p>The health ministry estimates that a third of girls are married off before they turn 18, accounting for the country&#8217;s high number of maternal deaths, which are among the highest in the world.<\/p>\n<p>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 $4 000.<\/p>\n<p>Parents or those attending such marriage ceremonies could also face punishment under the new law.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">At the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/WeAreEqual?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#WeAreEqual<\/a> campaign launch today at the Freetown Conference Centre, I signed the Prohibiting Child Marriage Bill into law.<\/p>\n<p>Fatima <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FirstLadyBio?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@FirstLadyBio<\/a> has always championed women&#8217;s and girls&#8217; rights issues with a very special passion. Together, we want to build an empowered\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/hv6IDWR76k\">pic.twitter.com\/hv6IDWR76k<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 President Julius Maada Bio (@PresidentBio) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PresidentBio\/status\/1808201932042854458?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">July 2, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Parents or anyone attending child marriage ceremonies could also face punishment under the new law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":964071,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[346],"tags":[496,497,498],"class_list":["post-964070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa","tag-child-marriage","tag-child-marriage-banned","tag-sierra-leone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elections.sabc.co.za\/elections2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elections.sabc.co.za\/elections2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elections.sabc.co.za\/elections2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elections.sabc.co.za\/elections2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elections.sabc.co.za\/elections2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=964070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/elections.sabc.co.za\/elections2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elections.sabc.co.za\/elections2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/964071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elections.sabc.co.za\/elections2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=964070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elections.sabc.co.za\/elections2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=964070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elections.sabc.co.za\/elections2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=964070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}