Hawa Dabia

Malian human rights lawyer eradicating child marriage through community legal education

Hawa Dabia is a Malian legal advocate and founder of Rights of Children Initiative (RCI), established in 2019 to combat child marriage in West Africa. Her organization has helped over 8,000 girls avoid early marriages through legal literacy programs and community dialogues.

Her landmark 2021 Supreme Court case State v. Diallo set a precedent for enforcing Mali's 2017 law prohibiting marriage under 18, resulting in 47 prosecutions against traffickers by 2023. Dabia developed the Girls' Legal Empowerment Curriculum, now taught in 130 villages, and created the RCI Radio Drama Series (2022-2024) reaching 2 million listeners. She co-authored Mali's first child rights training manual for law enforcement officers in 2024. Her work inspired the UNICEF Child Marriage Eradication Framework for Sahel countries. Dabia was featured in BBC 100 Women 2023 and recently advised the African Union's 2025 Gender Policy Commission. Her TED Talk How to End Child Marriage in One Generation (2024) has been translated into 15 languages.