Sierra Leone’s harsh new laws to protect women and girls are causing harm in the wrong places

By Luisa T. Schneider, Assistant Professor, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam; Independent Social Research Foundation

In the decades after Sierra Leone’s civil war (1991-2002), there was pressure on the west African country to demonstrate progress on gender equality. Laws were passed to fight domestic violence, rape and teen pregnancy. But drawing on colonial legal models, the reforms don’t always match social realities and in many cases are harming young people from poor communities. Punishment is being made more important than resolution or education.

Luisa T. Schneider is an anthropologist who has…

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~	How can Europe meet the challenge posed by the retreat of the US?

~	What Kate Nash’s grassroots music protest reveals about touring and streaming

~	How sailing voyages can inspire the next generation of ocean scientists and advocates

~	Self-driving cars are poorly prepared for high-risk road situations – here’s how AI can improve them

~	3 generations of Black Philadelphia students report persistent anti-Black attitudes in schools

~	New dietary guidelines prioritize ‘real food’ – but low-income pregnant women can’t easily obtain it

~	Revisiting the story of Clementine Barnabet, a Black woman blamed for serial murders in the Jim Crow South

~	In World War II’s dog-eat-dog struggle for resources, a Greenland mine launched a new world order

~	Coffee crops are dying from a fungus with species-jumping genes – researchers are ‘resurrecting’ their genomes to understand how and why

~	Developing lab-grown human cartilage… using apples!