Soon after she was elected President of Liberia and became the first female president in Africa, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf promoted and pushed through a new, strong rape law. The legislation condemns sexual violence and declares that any sexual act with a child under 18 is rape and a crime, regardless of consent. In a country where rape is disquietingly common, the new law is promising. However, much more must be done to actually and aggressively enact the new law.

To begin this movement, the nation’s Ministry of Justice has requested the Partnership for Democratic Governance (PDG) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to assist in the process of improving the prosecution and investigation of sexual offenses in Liberia. Recently, I was hired through Vital Voices by the OECD to visit Liberia to see where help was needed and to assess the viability of PDG assistance. During my visit to the capital city of Monrovia and Montserrado County, I worked with OECD and United Nations representatives, policymakers from the Liberian Ministry of Gender, and prosecutors from Liberia’s Ministry of Justice. However, I also had the opportunity to meet with men and women who daily witness and work against the sexual violence that plagues their nation.

Throughout my visit, I was struck by the prevalence of sexual violence: the causes are numerous, and the consequences are crippling. In Liberia, the new rape law attempts to address this problem by criminalizing the act and punishing perpetrators. However, current weaknesses in the criminal justice system threaten the law’s effectiveness. For example, while the law criminalizes the sexual assault of both children and women, violence against women is categorically more poorly investigated and reported than crimes against children. The omission of cases concerning women over the age of 18 threatens to allow sexual violence to continue and worsen, even in the face of the new law. Still, perhaps the most threatening and frustrating limitation in Liberia is the absence of forensic crime lab facilities. Although free medical exams are generally available to sexual assault victims, the clothing and other biological evidence that nurses, doctors, and prosecutors could collect remain useless. Without lab facilities, DNA tests are impossible, and the clearest, simplest proof of sexual assault is unattainable. Sexual offenders who could be easily convicted remain unpunished.

Despite these numerous inadequacies, I was encouraged by the projects that were being undertaken and the people who were diligently working to eradicate sexual violence. In Monrovia, there are several clinics in which nurses provide crucial medical exams free of charge to victims of sexual assault. Throughout the county, strong, dedicated women maintain shelters for abused children who cannot or should not go home because it is unsafe. Also, within the Liberian Ministry of Justice, specialized prosecutors who are part of the Sexual Gender Based Violence (SGBV) Unit receive focused training and handle cases solely concerning sexual abuse and violence. Similarly, police officers in the Women and Children Protection (WACP) Unit only respond to and investigate crimes of domestic violence, sexual violence, child physical abuse, child sexual abuse, and failure to support dependents. Resolutely backing all of these efforts is the new rape law itself, an encouraging step that should be noted and supported.

The proposed PDG project could expand and enhance current efforts by strengthening the ability of the Liberian criminal justice system and other concerned groups and individuals to prosecute sexual violence offenders and to better respond to and protect victims.