Sierra Leone: a brand new regulation imposes 30% of positions for girls

Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Bio on Thursday signed into regulation a regulation requiring all public or personal organizations to order 30% of their jobs for girls, together with in management positions, in a society that historically favours males.

“The Girls’s Equality and Empowerment Act that I’m signing into regulation as we speak will undoubtedly utterly redress the gender imbalances in our nation. We should ensure that it really works,” the president mentioned in the course of the signing ceremony in Freetown.

The textual content additionally applies to Parliament the place 30% of the 146 seats have to be occupied by ladies. Some 18 ladies sit in Parliament as we speak and 4 are among the many 32 members of Mr. Bio’s authorities.

“We should not hamper, belittle, intimidate or hinder ladies who wish to work within the public sector and those that assist them,” President Bio mentioned.

“It isn’t going to be simple as a result of this house has been occupied by males for a really very long time, now we have to observe the electoral processes to make sure equity and transparency within the elections,” he mentioned.

Employers who don’t adjust to the regulation face a positive of fifty,000 leones (2,400 euros) for every violation.

The textual content additionally goals to advertise ladies’s entry to financing and hyperlinks public spending to equality between women and men. Those that deny ladies equal entry to monetary assist danger a minimum of three years in jail.

Rights defenders have lengthy denounced the discrimination towards ladies in addition to the violence to which they’re subjected on this poor nation of seven.5 million inhabitants.