By George M.O. Williams
Nine years after being brutally subjected to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), survivor Kadijatu is still waiting for justice and compensation, despite a landmark ruling by the ECOWAS Court of Justice.
On July 8, 2025, the Court held the Government of Sierra Leone liable for failing to protect her fundamental human rights. The ruling ordered the State to adopt immediate legislative measures prohibiting and sanctioning FGM, as well as put in place administrative, educational, and socioeconomic policies to eradicate the practice.
The judgment also mandated the Government to pay the equivalent of US$30,000 US dollars in Leones to Kadijatu as compensation and to promptly investigate, identify, and prosecute those responsible for the attack. Yet, nearly a decade later, Kadijatu says justice remains elusive.
Her ordeal began on September 16, 2016, in Kondebutehun, Kenema District, when she was forcibly subjected to FGM as punishment for failing to pay a fine imposed by a local sowei after a dispute with her neighbor. She was blindfolded, restrained, cut without consent, and denied food, water, and medical attention until police, activists, and a journalist intervened to rescue her.
Although she received medical treatment, threats from the Soweis forced her to flee to neighboring Liberia, where she lived in exile for three years. With support from advocacy groups Purposeful and the Forum Against Harmful Practices (FAHP), she brought her case before the ECOWAS Court of Justice.
“Sometimes I feel like a chicken has more rights than a woman in this our Sierra Leone,” Kadijatu told journalists at a press briefing where she publicly shared her story for the first time.
Her testimony has since become both a personal appeal for justice and a rallying cry for accountability. Advocacy groups are urging media houses to amplify her voice and publish her own account of her ordeal, framing her case as symbolic of the broader fight to protect women and girls across Sierra Leone from harmful practices and systemic neglect.