By mohamedj.bah@awokonewspaper.sl
Freetown, SIERRA LEONE – “In every profession women face intimidation from their male counterparts and the public, and the legal profession is not an exception,” says Lawyer Alisha Cole.
After passing her final Bar exams in 2014 and signing the Register, Madam Cole was certified as a Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of Sierra Leone. But her journey into the profession was not an easy one – largely due, she says, to her sex and the environment she finds herself in.
She said in Sierra Leone people just believe that women should remain at the back and allow men to make decisions and dictate the way things will be – something which she says, to some extent, affected her own career path, especially at the beginning.
“It all started with my parents,” she explained, who wanted her to be a Banker instead of a Lawyer, even though they encouraged her brother to read law.
To satisfy her parents, Cole worked first to obtain an Accounting Degree but later proceeded to pursue her profession of choice (a legal profession) when she went to study in England.
“Sometimes the discrimination against women is not in relation to our laws in the country, but something which starts from the home,” she explained, adding that this discrimination can often lead to a feeling of intimidation – which can continue, even when women do manage to enter professional fields.
“[Before now,] I was a bit coward to come up against the best male lawyers in the country,” she said, “despite on some of these occasions, I have had the better case to argue. [This often] ruined my chances in the first two years of my practice.”
As a whole, Cole said women have contributed meaningfully to the legal field in Sierra Leone – and, despite the fact that the profession is still dominated by men, women now experience fair opportunities to succeed.
“The space is there in the profession for both sexes to grab,” she explained, “but it all depends on how well someone researches and prepares for his or her case. For now, I don’t see the disparity, because we have male lawyers as well as female lawyers, and the judges are there to hold the balance.”
Since everyone wants to win their own case, Cole said that it is true some lawyers may use intimidation as a tactic for arguing in the Court Room – but that is about winning cases, not about gender.
Equal under the law
Madam Fatmata Claire Hanciles serves as Director of the Legal Aid Board, an institution that provides free legal services to people in need. Having worked as a lawyer for about 24 years, Madam Hanciles described the profession as one which is growing in the country – and one which, today, is equally open to both men and women alike.
In the legal profession, “men and women are equals,” she explained. “I have never felt like I’ve been marginalized because I am a woman, no. As long as you know your law, you read your books, and you are serious with your legal practice, it is not a question of being a male-dominated or female-dominated field, but [of individual performance and] delivery”.
What matters in the profession, she explained, is how good or bad a lawyer is, rather than the sex of the individual. “Whether you are a woman or not, parties will present and argue out their case in court. The law is in the bosom of the judge, who will have to make a decision at the end of the day based on the evidence, the facts, and the law.”
Madam Hanciles confirmed that, at the Bar, there is currently a very strong female presence, adding that women hold their own in the profession, just as she herself has – having served at one time as an Executive Member of the Association and having spent 11 years at the Special Court, where she rose to the position of Principal Defender.
“The challenges women face in the legal profession,” she said, have less to do with hurdles posed within the profession itself and more to do with the challenge of balancing so many different commitments, such as looking after the home while carrying on with professional practice.
“First of all, to be a woman is a very tough task,” she said, explaining that when she got married, her life changed greatly, especially when she had to skip cases in order to breastfeed her child. This is just one example of a challenge, she said, that male practitioners do not face. Yet, despite these many challenges, she said women are continuing to enter (and succeed) in the field.
Madam Hanciles stressed that, at Legal Aid Board, they now have 24 lawyers, of whom 40% are female, and are performing extremely well in their duties, both in and out of court.
Added advantage
From her own point of view, young female legal practitioner, Fatmata Koroma, feels that being a female lawyer may in fact come with an added advantage, in that the public seems to admire a lot of female lawyers.
“I think we resonate well with the public because we are mothers, we empathize, and we understand faster,” she said – adding that, in her own experience, she has never heard of female lawyers being consulted or paid more or less than their male counterparts, as a result of their gender.
“You will be consulted and paid based on your competence and how well you know and understand the law generally,” she explained.
Growing numbers of women at the law school level
The Sierra Leone Law School was established by the Council of Legal Education (Act No.1), in February 1990, with the aim of providing professional legal training to holders of Bachelor of Law Degrees in Sierra Leone. According to school representatives, in its 33 years of existence, the institution has trained more than 1,300 Barristers and Solicitors – including a growing number of women.
According to School Registrar, Daniel Lavally, a total of 597 students have graduated from the Sierra Leone Law School over the last three years (from 2020 to 2022), of which 207 were females. Meaning that, during this period, 35% of all graduates were women.
As lawyer Mam Amie Jobe explains: “The beautiful thing is that more women are now joining the profession, a profession which used to be male-dominated one year back. More women are passing the Bar and more women are joining the noble profession now.”
As a Programme Director for the civil society organization, Society for Democratic Initiatives (SDI), Jobe feels strongly about the impact that women are having – not only on the legal profession as a whole in the country but also in the sense that many are serving as human rights activists, volunteering their time free of cost to advocate for women’s and children’s rights.
Madam Jobe said there are challenges in any profession, and for women lawyers, these challenges may occur both inside and outside of the Court. But gradually, she said many of these challenges are being overcome, and with the growing number of women opting now to study law, she feels the gap between male and female lawyers in the country will soon be bridged.
“Women are doing everything possible to make the necessary changes in the profession and it is happening gradually. Before, the environment was not conducive, as women were shy about becoming lawyers. But not anymore. Personally, I have never been intimidated or harassed in my life due to my profession, but I know some women do get harassed.”
She advised those women to be strong and keep fighting the course for justice in society.
This report was produced with support from Internews’ Public-Facing Women Reporting Fellowship 2022-2023.
