According to the 2019 Global Human Freedom index, Sierra Leone ranked 132 out of 162 countries, scoring 5.99 – dropping 20 places from 2018.
What this shows is that in the past two years, Sierra Leone’s Global Human Freedom performance has dropped 26 places., suggesting that (notwithstanding the coronavirus pandemic), citizens are less free to enjoy their civil Liberties – freedom of speech, movement, security, religion, association and assembly.
This fifth annual index uses 76 distinct indicators of personal and economic freedom in the following areas:
• Rule of Law
• Security and Safety
• Movement
• Religion
• Association, Assembly, and Civil Society
• Expression and Information
• Identity and Relationships
• Size of Government
• Legal System and Property Rights
• Access to Sound Money
• Freedom to Trade Internationally
• Regulation of Credit, Labor, and Business
The HFI finds a strong relationship between human freedom and democracy and suggests that freedom plays an important role in human well-being.
Women-specific freedoms, as measured by five indicators in the index, are strongest in North America, Western Europe, and East Asia and are least protected in the Middle East and North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia.
According to the ranking it would appear that Sierra Leoneans generally enjoyed more freedoms and civil liberties like freedom of speech, movement, economic, rule of law ,security under the former APC government than they are currently under the SLPP government.
