The courtroom in Freetown was packed with women in bright headscarves and men in sober suits. The air hummed with the static of mobile phones and the low murmur of a nation watching. Today, the trial of a 14-year-old girl’s father opened, charged with forcing her into marriage. The case has become a lightning rod for a cultural reckoning.
For years, child marriage in Sierra Leone has been a shadow practice, hidden behind dowries and tradition. But this time, the girl spoke to a teacher, who alerted a UK-funded legal aid programme. That programme, run by a consortium of human rights lawyers, has been quietly building a network of paralegals in rural villages. Now, it is testing the country’s 2007 Child Rights Act, which bans marriage under 18.
The father, a farmer in his 50s, maintains he was following custom. “She is my daughter,” he told reporters outside court. “I know what is best.” But the prosecutor, a young woman with a sharp bob and a laptop, argued that consent is not a family decision. The girl herself is not in court; she is in a safe house, giving evidence via video link. Her testimony, leaked to local media, describes being locked in a room with a man twice her age.
This is not just a legal test. It is a social earthquake. In the villages, neighbours are divided. Some say the girl has shamed her family. Others quietly hope the case will free their own daughters. The legal aid workers, mostly Sierra Leonean but backed by British taxpayer money, are targets of suspicion. “They are destroying our culture,” one elder told me. But a paralegal, a fresh-faced woman of 25, countered: “Culture is not static. Slavery was culture once.”
The trial is expected to last weeks. The judge, a veteran of the family court, has his own reputation on the line. If he convicts, it could set a precedent for thousands of similar cases. If he acquits, the legal aid programme may lose its funding, and its nerve.
Walking through the market after the hearing, I saw young girls selling mangoes, their school uniforms missing. One told me she was 15, but her eyes looked older. “My mother is saving for my bride price,” she said. “But I want to be a nurse.” For a moment, she looked at the courthouse. Then she turned away.
The trial is not just about one girl. It is about the chasm between a law on paper and the lives it tries to change. And it is about the quiet revolution of those who dare to speak.
