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Liberia Declares Rape A National Emergency

 

The Liberian Government has declared rape a national emergency following the recent spike of rape cases in the country. This was announced by the Liberian President, George Weah, who also said that a special prosecutor for rape in Liberia would be installed. George Weah also stated that the country would now set up a national sex offender registry to curb the rampant incidence of rape in the country. Furthermore, the government will also establish a โ€œnational security task forceโ€ on sexual- and gender-based violence.

The announcement is followed by a conference in the capital Monrovia on tackling sexual violence which would hold on Wednesday, September 16, 2020. Stating that Liberia was already โ€œwitnessing what is actually an epidemic of rape within the pandemic, affecting mostly children and young girls across the country, George Weah has promised that further anti-rape measures will be announced.

The high rates of rape in Liberia has generated a lot of concern as a UN report in 2016 recorded 803 rape cases the previous year in the country of 4.5 million, and found that only two percent of sexual violence cases led to a conviction, for example.

Also, Margaret Taylor, the director of Liberiaโ€™s Women Empowerment Network, told press men last month that her NGO had recorded 600 cases of rape between June and August, which went up from between 80 and a hundred cases in May.

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