Many girls do not want to go through the trauma of reporting their assault. Rape victims are forced to testify in a public court filled with males.
The President of Liberia, George Weah, declared rape a national emergency in 2020, creating an SGBV (Sexual and Gender-Based Violence) taskforce, buying a DNA machine, and funding the programme, but then it all fell apart.
To bring attention to this issue, Liberian citizens created a video posted on Twitter. The video is made up of three clips. The first level shows former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Ms. Fatou Bensouda, speaking to a group of girls about the crimes they have experienced and how it’s not their fault.
In the second level, Weah speaks to a group of boys about respecting women. Lastly, girls talk about their experiences being raped in the third level. A message is displayed at the end of each level, saying “Break the silence” and “End rape.”
Yet, Weah says afterward, “How can we have a rape problem? The women are not even dying.”
In another report, a witness stated, after the creation of the SGBV taskforce, “The Liberian National Police, Liberia Security Department and the Armed Forces of Liberia have been dumping rape victims in a truck with other people assumed to be “vagabonds”, which is illegal, and throwing them into a gated compound. According to the International Rescue Committee, this compound is controlled by the police officers, making it very unsafe for these victims.”
Many girls do not want to go through the trauma of reporting their assault. According to the organisation ELIM, “Evidence shows that many women do not report cases of sexual violence due to inefficiencies within Liberia’s judicial system in dealing with such cases.
“In particular, survivors of sexual violence often face high barriers to reporting the crime and accessing justice due to limited access to medical services and justice institutions, social stigmatisation and rejection, fear of further violence, and lack of knowledge about their rights.”
As President Weah has proudly claimed, the reported incidents of rape might have decreased, but that’s because women and families stopped reporting it. After all, they know the system doesn’t work.
Rape victims are forced to testify in a public court filled with males, which is traumatising for these women.
Providing justice and care to victims of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) is an essential part of promoting economic and social development. When we violate women, we do it as a family, as a community, as a country, and as the world.
How can people who don’t live in Liberia help?
Thanks to connectivity and advancements in low-barrier access to technology, citizens no longer have to live in the political vacuums of their societies. The world can unite behind issues that locals bring up for more extensive discussions. However, a tactic used by the Weah administration aims to suppress these issues from reaching larger audiences and having to be held accountable for rapes, deaths, and shame fostered under his watch.
In 2019, unknown assailants attacked Joy FM, a radio station based in Monrovia, cutting a cable connected to the transmitter, according to Media Foundation for West Africa (2020).
In 2021, journalist Aryee Davis allegedly fled her home in Paynesville, a suburb of Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, due to threats by an agent that worked for a local news outlet GrainCost TV, an incident that GrainCoast TV denies.
FrontPageAfrica (FPA), Liberia’s leading online newspaper, was shut down because of an advertiser’s announcement published in the newspaper (2020, MFWA).
“Press freedom in Liberia has taken a nosedive,” James Harding Giahyue, a Liberian journalist noted.
The former UN goodwill ambassador, President Weah, signed into law on February 28, 2019, a bill to amend sections 11:11, 11.12, and 11.14 of the criminal code, which prescribed prison terms for a range of speech offences.
Liberians must access the internet and social media platforms to keep people, politicians, and perpetrators accountable and honest.
Netblocks reported in 2021 that, “The disruptions affecting the ordinary operation of the social media platforms have raised concerns of a state order to restrict the Save The State protests in the Liberian capital Monrovia.”
Despite these barriers, citizens find ways to use technology to bring attention to their respective struggles. Liberia needs more of this so that the world can be privy to the issues at hand.
And suppose you take the growing issues of rape and death-by-gender and lay that beside the open letter written in 2022 by Rev. Caleb S G Dormah, Pastor of Metro Harvest- the Church Without Walls, calling for attention to the 250,000 at-risk youths living in the streets of Liberia, estimated to double by 2023. In that case, the president needs to start being honest.
Rev. Dormah asks, “Do we go back to business as usual where drug lords run the streets freely filling the pockets of high government officials for protection?”
President Weah’s position comes with complex and severe life and death responsibility to protect and improve the people’s lives in his country. The world is watching.
Kristi Pelzel is a Washington, DC-based adjunct professor and international media advisor. She’s also served as a legal and fundraising advocate for youth parenting shelters for the last seven years.
BY Kristi Pelzel