For Sierra Leone’s First Lady Fatima Maada Bio, the UN’s decision to establish an international day against child, early and forced marriage is more than a diplomatic milestone. It is a deeply personal answer to the girl she once was.
By Ishmael Sallieu Koroma
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — Long before Fatima Maada Bio became Sierra Leone’s First Lady and took the campaign for girls’ rights to the United Nations, she says she was a child whose future was being decided by adults. Marriage, she says, was being chosen for her.
“I was a child when my future was almost stolen by adults who decided it was time for me to be married,” Bio wrote in a Facebook post following a landmark United Nations decision. “I did not choose that path it was chosen for me.”
Bio says refusing that future came at a price. She left her home, her family and eventually her country to pursue a different life, but not every girl facing the same circumstances gets that chance. “Not every girl has that choice. Not every girl escapes,” she wrote.
That personal history gave added weight to a diplomatic achievement on September 4, when the United Nations General Assembly adopted, without a vote, Resolution 80/309, establishing November 27 as the International Day for the Elimination of Child, Early and Forced Marriage.
Sierra Leone introduced the resolution, which was co-sponsored by dozens of UN member states. The new observance is intended to provide an annual platform for governments, international organisations and civil society to raise awareness, strengthen political commitment and accelerate efforts to end child, early and forced marriage.
For Bio, however, the decision was about more than diplomacy. “It is the world finally answering the girl I once was and the millions of girls living that same fear right now,” she wrote.
A Global Crisis Measured in Millions
Child marriage is defined by UNICEF as a formal marriage or informal union involving someone below the age of 18. Although boys are also affected, girls are disproportionately affected, with UNICEF estimating that 650 million women and girls alive today were married before their 18th birthday.
Around 19 percent of young women globally are now married in childhood, down from 23 percent a decade ago. Progress has been considerably slower in sub-Saharan Africa, where about 35 percent of young women are married before 18, compared with 38 percent a decade ago.
The consequences can extend across a girl’s life. Child marriage is associated with interrupted education, early pregnancy, social isolation, restricted economic opportunities and increased exposure to violence. UNICEF describes it as a fundamental violation of human rights that limits girls’ ability to determine the course of their own lives.
In Sierra Leone, the numbers tell a story of progress, but also of how much remains to be done. According to UNICEF’s 2025 country profile, 30 percent of women aged 20 to 24 in Sierra Leone were married before the age of 18, down from 51 percent in 1994. The proportion married before the age of 15 has also fallen, from 21 percent in 1994 to 9 percent.
The decline is significant, but it still means that almost one in three young women in the country experienced marriage before adulthood. UNICEF says traditional and religious norms, economic vulnerability and other social pressures continue to complicate efforts to eliminate child marriage. Behind those percentages are girls, and that is the argument Bio has taken from Sierra Leone to the international stage.
From a Childhood Experience to a Global Campaign
Bio has made the protection of girls a central part of her public advocacy through her Hands Off Our Girls campaign, and her message following the UN decision was unequivocal. “Child marriage is not culture it is a crime,” she wrote.
“It is not tradition it is theft: of childhood, of education, of dignity, of the right to decide one’s own life.”
Her argument places child marriage within a broader human-rights debate over whether cultural or traditional practices can justify denying children rights guaranteed under national and international law. For Sierra Leone, the campaign also builds on a longer history of confronting forced marriage through international criminal law.
Sierra Leone’s International Legal Legacy
Mohamed Kamara, a 28-year-old final-year law student at Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone, said the UN resolution represents another important moment for a country that has previously influenced the development of international law. “We are making another landmark move with this resolution,” Kamara said.
“Sierra Leone was the first country in the world, through the Special Court for Sierra Leone, to outlaw forced marriage.”
The historical distinction is important. The Special Court for Sierra Leone did not create a general domestic prohibition on child marriage. Rather, its jurisprudence established a landmark precedent in international criminal law by recognising forced marriage as an “other inhumane act” constituting a crime against humanity.
In 2009, the Special Court convicted Issa Hassan Sesay, Morris Kallon and Augustine Gbao of forced marriage as another inhumane act. The court’s own annual report described the convictions as the first such convictions in international criminal law.
For Kamara, that history demonstrates how Sierra Leone’s experience with conflict and human-rights abuses has continued to influence international legal discourse. He said the country was once again making its mark in international law and international human-rights law, this time not in a courtroom, but at the United Nations General Assembly.
A Resolution Is Not the End
The adoption of the international day was celebrated by campaigners, diplomats and advocates as a major milestone, but the new date on the UN calendar cannot, by itself, prevent a child from being married. Bio acknowledged that in her own remarks to the General Assembly, where she introduced the resolution on behalf of Sierra Leone.
“An international day cannot by itself end child marriage,” she told delegates, arguing that political attention, strong laws, effective institutions, education, economic opportunities, community leadership and sustained political will are also necessary.
That distinction matters because a UN observance can create political visibility, provide campaigners with an annual platform and give governments an opportunity to assess progress. Implementation, however, happens much closer to home—in schools, families, communities, courts, police stations and government ministries.
Sierra Leone has itself moved to strengthen its legal framework. The country enacted the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2024, which prohibits child marriage, and Bio highlighted the legislation during her address to the General Assembly as part of Sierra Leone’s own experience in confronting the practice.
UNICEF, however, says legislation alone is not enough. Its latest Sierra Leone profile points to continuing weaknesses in enforcement and the persistence of economic and social pressures that can place girls at risk. That leaves a difficult question for Sierra Leone and other countries: how does a legal promise become a lived reality for a girl whose family is struggling to survive?
“Today, the World Chose Our Girls”
In her Facebook message following the UN adoption, Bio described the decision as a collective promise to girls. “Today, the world chose our girls,” she wrote.
She thanked President Julius Maada Bio for supporting her advocacy for women and children and recognised the UN member states, diplomats and negotiators involved in advancing the resolution. She also paid tribute to grassroots organisations, survivors, faith leaders and communities working against child marriage away from the international spotlight.
Among those she acknowledged were the Organization of African First Ladies for Development (OAFLAD) and child-rights advocate Bhuwan Ribhu, whose organization, Just Rights for Children, has campaigned internationally for an end to child marriage. The organization says the call for an international day was first raised by Ribhu at the UN Commission on the Status of Women in March 2026 and subsequently advanced with Sierra Leone’s support.
Bio did not, however, present the UN resolution as the conclusion of the campaign. “A resolution is a beginning, not an ending,” she wrote.
The Girl Still Waiting
The power of Bio’s message ultimately lies not in the diplomatic language of a UN resolution, but in the image of the girl whose future is being decided by someone else. “Remember the girl who is told her body and her future belong to someone else’s decision,” she wrote. “Remember that she has a name, a voice and a right to be heard.”
The words are rooted in Bio’s own account of childhood, but the audience is global. To girls facing the possibility of child marriage, she wrote: “You are not alone, you are not forgotten, and your future is yours to write.”
Then came the appeal that has become central to her campaign: “Let girls grow. Let girls learn. Let girls choose.”
For the woman who says she once faced the possibility of losing her childhood to a decision made by adults, the journey to the United Nations represents a striking reversal of circumstance. The girl whose future was once being negotiated by others is now standing on one of the world’s most important diplomatic stages, asking governments to make sure millions of other girls have the right to determine their own futures.
The United Nations has created a date, but the harder task begins now. On November 27 each year, governments will be able to mark the international day with speeches, campaigns and commitments, while the real measure of its success will be far less visible.
It will be whether a girl in a village in Sierra Leone, a community elsewhere in Africa or another part of the world is able to remain in school, avoid a marriage she did not choose and reach adulthood with the freedom to determine her own future.
“Today, the world chose our girls,” Bio wrote. “Tomorrow, we begin the work of proving we meant it.”
