Yesterday, 8 March 2022, women in Sierra Leone joined the usual bandwagon of celebrating International Women’s Day albeit the various hiccups they continue to withstand in a country where barriers to education, marginalization in the workforce, low political representation, sexual harassment, rape, and harmful traditional practices amongst others continue to soar in a geometric progression.

To most women, they have no option but to join the prevailing hype of trying to be happy, whilst in the real world they continue to weep in the arms and muscles of those at the helm of affairs that feign to be the real advocates of women.

We have seen and witnessed scandalous situations in Sierra Leone where women are stripped from positions of trust, forced to undue harmful traditional practices, marginalized and dragged to the corridors of humiliation like reeking rags. It was indeed a calculated ploy by these same perpetrators of awful crime against women organizing seminars to paint deceitful images about the current state of Sierra Leonean women on international corridors just to attract an inflow of cash at the detriment of our resilient Sierra Leonean women.

Let’s fix it right by giving more leverage to women in Sierra Leone.

At the brink of this trying times, we should be focusing on how to give leverage to women on chains of hurdles they continue to encounter rather than flooding various media outlets with concocted plans and wishes for our Sierra Leonean women on International Women’s Day.