How we are moving the gender agenda forward in Sierra Leone.

In January 2023, President Julius Maada Bio of Sierra Leone signed into law the country's landmark Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment Act, which provides that at least 30 per cent of public and private jobs be reserved for women, 14 weeks of maternity leave, among others. The country's Minister of Gender and Children's Affairs, Manty Tarawalli, who was at the frontline of the effort to enact the law, participated in the 67th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in New York in March. Africa Renewal's Kingsley Ighobor interviewed her about the new law and its potential impact on Sierra Leonean women. These are excerpts from the interview:

How we passed the landmark GEWE Act in Sierra Leone

-Manty Tarawalli, Minister of Gender and Children's Affairs

Passing the Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment (GEWE) Act was challenging. It was not easy because you are confronting the status quo. You are trying to change something that has existed for decades, trying to introduce a new thing.

For 40 years, Sierra Leoneans talked about the GEWE law and wanted to pass it but could not even formulate a policy on it.

But we took some steps that made us successful.

First, we put a policy paper together.

As you know, a policy paper is not legally binding. You can choose to implement or not implement it.

Therefore, we needed to make the policy binding so that any government that comes, whether I am there as a minister or not, will continue to implement it. That is why we went to the law, to parliament.

Second, we went to the grassroots population to galvanize support.

It took us 13 months. We had to shift people's ideas and change the argument from just rights-based to economic growth. The economic growth conversation is that empowered women will contribute economically to the family, community and country. Once we started that conversation, we saw a bit of a change.

For countries struggling with terminology on equality, I would advise them to change the conversation. When we are talking to Paramount Chiefs about [just] the rights of women, that is not an effective argument to make. But when we talk about how empowering women means more money to your town or village, and there will be less burden for households, people become receptive.

And we will give examples of homes where two parents are working versus where there is only one working parent, and how two working parents thrive better. They understood that point.

Third, we had the presidential will

(I would not just call it political will). President Bio jumped in the ring. On...