Allies in Development was founded in December 2020, in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, at a time when violence against women and girls was already a national emergency.

In February 2019, the President of Sierra Leone declared a public health emergency on rape and sexual violence, describing it as a national crisis that threatened the country’s human capital development agenda. Nearly 3,000 sexual assault cases were recorded in 2018 alone, with more than 70% of survivors being underage girls aged 15 and below. Among them, over 2,400 contracted sexually transmitted diseases, yet only 39 cases were successfully prosecuted.

But violence against women and girls in Sierra Leone is not new. During the country’s 11-year civil war (1991–2002), more than 200,000 women and girls were subjected to sexual violence. This legacy of harm has persisted, rooted in cultural and socio-political systems that continue to fail survivors today.