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UNICEF's Early Marriage: A Harmful Traditional Practice report characterizes child marriage as a harmful institution that often exposes young women in developing nations to damaging domestic, health, and sexual conditions. The report also highlights the practice as a human rights violation.

According to Sierra Leonean customary law, a marriage is not considered a valid customary marriage unless both parties are at least 18 years old, with the Customary Marriage and Divorce Act dictating this in 2007. However, in the case that a minor's parents are able to give consent to the union, a legal marriage is able to take place. If the consent of the parents is not able to be achieved, "a Magistrate or Local Government Chief Administrator of the locality in which the marriage is to take place" is able to provide their consent to verify the marriage.

However, according to UNICEF's The State of the World's Children 2013 report, 18% of Sierra Leonean women are married by the age of 15, while 44% of them are married by the age of 18. As of 2017, Sierra Leone was ranked by UNICEF as the 19th nation for the highest rates of child marriage.

Impacts of the Sierra Leonean Civil War on Child Marriages
With Sierra Leone's civil war, many young girls were conscripted into being child soldiers. Organization Girls Not Brides contends that due to the presence of female child soldiers in Sierra Leone, it may have aided in cultural perceptions of young girls as being mentally capable of marriage, with the justification being that since they were capable to physically engage in armed conflict, they could handle being married.

The Sierra Leonean Civil War left girls subject to sexual harassment and abuse. Young girls forced into the rebel forces, especially, were raped by their male soldier counterparts, resulting in a marginalized group of young women during the post-civil war period with children born out of rape. In post-civil war Sierra Leone, the ramifications of wartime sexual abuse have manifested in the difficulty of girl mothers acquiring spouses. Culturally, prior to marriage, girls are expected to be virgins, but with the sexual abuse that was present during wartime, now-girl mothers are finding issues with finding husbands that will marry them despite no longer being virgins. Girl mothers in the post-civil war era have also experienced difficulty acquiring partners not only due to cultural perceptions of purity, but due to civil war political alignment. Though many girls were forced into the rebel forces, either as wives or soldiers, after the war, these girls experience difficulty in acquiring partners due to their previous association with the Revolutionary United Front. These social and political stigmas create problems for girl mothers in Sierra Leone that may seek marriage as a means of acquiring economic resources and stability from their partners.

Governmental Commitments Against Child Marriage
In 2013, during the twenty-fourth session of the United Nations Human Rights Council General Assembly, Sierra Leone formally committed itself to "preventing" and "eliminating" child marriage in the country.

In 2016, Sierra Leone's Ministry of Finance and Economic Development in its United Nations Sustainable Development Goals report, committed itself to eliminating all forms of child marriage by the year 2030.

Non-Governmental Organizations' Commitments Against Child Marriage
Because Sierra Leone is one of the most high-risk countries for child marriage, a number of different non-governmental organizations have dedicated programming in Sierra Leone to combat child marriage.

International NGOs UNFPA and UNICEF, in 2016, first announced their joint 'Global Programme to End Child Marriage.' In the program, both organizations have committed themselves to stop child marriages in what they deem as the 12 highest risk nations for child marriage, including Sierra Leone. Tactics utilized in the program include emphasizing the importance of education to local young women, as well as advocacy for legal prohibition of child marriage in the countries that the program takes place. The program is also publicly supported by a number of nations and organizations, including "the Governments of Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom and the European Union, as well as Zonta International."