LSE - Small Logo
LSE - Small Logo

Bankolay Theodore Turay

January 29th, 2025

Challenges and opportunities remain for Sierra Leone’s Customary Land Act

0 comments | 4 shares

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Bankolay Theodore Turay

January 29th, 2025

Challenges and opportunities remain for Sierra Leone’s Customary Land Act

0 comments | 4 shares

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

The new law is a landmark in women’s equality, but lack of awareness and cultural opposition is holding back its implementation, writes Bankolay Theodore Turay.

Land is a basic resource that is essential to economic growth, food security, and livelihoods. A lack of access to, and ownership of land are significant obstacles for women in Sierra Leone and many other parts of the world. 

The 2022 Customary Land Act has played an important role in formalising and acknowledging traditional land tenure patterns in Sierra Leone. Through this legislation, customary practices were brought into compliance with national law to ensure that all citizens, especially women, have equal access to property. While the right of women to own land has long been acknowledged in theory in Sierra Leone, equal access to ownership and governance has not always been realised in practice.

The complexities of legal pluralism

In Sierra Leone’s legal system, formal laws and customary practices coexist in a system known as legal pluralism. This encompasses formal law, such as the 1991 Constitution of Sierra Leone, the 2022 Customary Land Act, and other statutory laws enacted by the state. It also encompasses customary laws, which comprise unwritten rules and traditions that have evolved within specific communities over time. As a result of this intricate interaction, numerous difficulties may arise.

These laws, often passed down orally and enforced through customary means, differ significantly among Sierra Leone’s diverse ethnic, geographic, and religious communities. Locally, they govern key aspects of land ownership, inheritance, and usage rights. The coexistence of multiple legal systems can pose challenges, including potential conflicts between statutory and customary laws, legal ambiguity, and the risk of marginalising or discriminating against certain groups.

Norms deeply embedded in communities may directly conflict with the provisions of the 2022 Act, particularly those pertaining to women’s inheritance rights. In customary law, women may be excluded from inheritance, receive smaller shares, or have limited control over their inheritance. A lack of awareness of the law and resistance from male relatives further complicates the situation, hindering women’s empowerment and the progress of gender equality.

Challenges in implementation

For local authorities, traditional leaders, and community members, the Customary Land Act is a problem and an additional bureaucratic burden for their underfunded office to take on. They need thorough training on the 2022 Act’s provisions and how it can affect land management and conflict settlement. Deeply rooted cultural customs and social norms that underpin gender inequality in land ownership must be aggressively contested to reduce injustice, obstacles to development and undermining the rule of law.

Despite this, the Act has not sufficiently addressed community engagement and education which would raise awareness of its content, challenge traditional beliefs, and provide legal aid and support.

These are necessary because of existing limitations on women’s capacity to inherit property from their fathers and widow inheritance, in which a widow forfeits her rights to her deceased husband’s land. This practice helped to preserve family lineage and property to keep property and wealth within the family line. In some cultures, widow inheritance was seen as a way to maintain social order and prevent a widow from being ostracised or left vulnerable.

It’s possible that many women in Sierra Leone are not aware of the 2022 Act’s legal protections. This calls for consistent efforts to increase awareness, advance gender equality, and encourage civil discourse in local communities. Due to a lack of resources and awareness, it is difficult for many women to access legal aid and justice processes to assert their rights. Strong institutional frameworks, sufficient funding, and the active involvement of local communities are necessary to implement the 2022 Act successfully.

Enhancing the ability of local leaders, such as traditional authorities, to apply and uphold the new legislation in a fair and gender-sensitive way is a necessary step. To track the 2022 Act’s implementation, it is imperative to collect strong data and monitoring procedures for government agencies, civil society organisations, universities and research institutions, to effectively implement, identify areas for improvement, and ultimately contribute to greater gender equality and women’s empowerment in Sierra Leone.

The 2022 Act is a crucial step towards ensuring women’s inheritance rights, but it alone is insufficient to overcome deeply rooted cultural barriers. A multi-pronged approach that combines legal reforms with community engagement, education, and empowerment of women is essential to achieving true gender equality in land ownership in Sierra Leone.

Opportunities for success

For implementation to be successful, there must be ongoing community involvement and active community participation. All phases of the process, from raising awareness to resolving conflicts, require the participation of traditional leaders, and women’s organisations. Women must be empowered through legal literacy initiatives, legal aid, and support systems to assert their land rights and take an active role in land governance.

Utilising technology, such as online platforms and mobile applications, can help stakeholders communicate more effectively, register land more easily, and obtain information more easily.

The health, education, and nutrition of children can all benefit from women owning land. Women are better equipped to make investments in their children’s welfare when they own land and resources. Women’s land ownership enhances food security, improves health outcomes by increasing access to healthcare and improving hygiene, and boosts educational opportunities. Women’s land ownership provides them with the resources and autonomy to prioritize their children’s needs, leading to significant improvements in their health, education, and overall well-being.

Women’s land rights are crucial for effective community-based environmental protection. Women are disproportionately impacted by environmental challenges due to their roles in food production and household management. Secure land rights empower women to adapt to climate change and build resilience; contribute their valuable traditional knowledge to sustainable resource management; generate income for risk reduction investments; gain a stronger voice in community decision-making; and assume leadership roles in community-based environmental projects.

It is important to remember that although the 2022 Customary Land Act offers a solid legal foundation for promoting women’s land rights, these potential advantages cannot be realised without efficient implementation and enforcement of the law. The government, civil society organisations, and local communities must work together to eliminate the obstacles that may prevent women’s land rights from being fully realised.

Successful implementation of the 2022 Customary Land Act necessitates a multi-pronged approach that considers the legal and social facets of land Tenure in Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone can, through the Act, ensure sustainable and equitable land governance for all of its citizens.

Its effective execution, however, requires a multifaceted strategy that tackles social, legal, and financial obstacles. If it does so, Sierra Leone can create a more inclusive and equitable land tenure system that empowers women and fosters sustainable development by combining focused activities with legislative reforms to address societal norms, raise public awareness, and enhance access to justice.


Photo credit: jbdodane used with permission CC BY-NC 2.0

About the author

Headshot of the author, Bankolay Theodore Turay

Bankolay Theodore Turay

Bankolay Theodore Turay is a Sierra Leonean PhD Candidate in Sustainable Urbanisation with the Centre for Housing and Sustainable Development, University of Lagos, as part of the WITS-TUB-UNILAG Urban Lab DAAD funded program. He holds a BA in Development Studies and MSc in Land Governance and Policy. He has experience working in rural communities on research, women’s land right and urbanization. He is committed to sustainable development, urbanization, and good land governance.

Posted In: Environment | Policy

Leave a Reply

Bad Behavior has blocked 13531 access attempts in the last 7 days.