Looking for the Law in Liberia

A few weeks ago in Liberia, I met with several women’s groups who told me about the new “rape law” which had come into force last year. The passing of this law is a great achievement for the people who had campaigned hard to seek justice for victims of sexual violence in Liberia. The victims are many. A 2005 survey in four counties indicated that 91.7 percent of 1,216 women and girls interviewed had been subjected to multiple violent acts during Liberia’s conflict.

So the women’s groups were understandably proud of the new law, but were disappointed by its lack of enforcement. The Rape Amendment Act has had little, if any, effect on stemming the high incidence of sexual violence so far. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) told me that in just one hospital in the capital, Monrovia, there were 513 cases of rape reported in the first six months of 2007, 174 of them involving victims under twelve years of age. The cases reported to MSF are probably only the tip of the iceberg, because of the stigma attached to reporting rape in this society. Aid groups and other non-governmental organizations feel that the police, lawyers, and judges do not understand the law, and that rape cases are not being dealt with properly by the courts.

Having heard so much about the rape law, and since I am a lawyer, I decided that I wanted to see a copy of it. So I asked the next organization I visited for a copy, but they didn’t have one. I asked a number of other organizations, with the same reply. Even groups who were running awareness-raising programs with communities about the rape law didn’t have a copy of it! By this time I was beginning to question whether or not a new rape law had really been enacted.

Finally, while visiting Lofa county in the north-west of Liberia one organization gave me a summary of the new rape law, which was a good start. Later, I had the opportunity to sit in on a child protection meeting—where representatives of government, UN agencies, and NGOs meet to discuss issues affecting children in the county. Someone talked about a rape case where the victim was a nine-year-old girl and the alleged perpetrator was a fifteen-year-old boy. The magistrate had thrown the case out of court because he said that this situation was not covered by the rape law, as the boy was under 18 and there was no evidence that the girl had not consented (despite her young age). The magistrate had apparently told the families that they should just talk to the boy and girl and tell them not to do this again.

Many meeting participants were understandably outraged by this decision of the court—surely this situation must be covered by the rape law?