Charles Taylor guilty: Liberians have mixed reactions In Monrovia, some Liberians denounce Taylor’s conviction, others welcome it. By Joanna Devane and Tecee Boley April 26, 2012 12:48 In Freetown, Sierra Leone, Mohamed Traore, one of the amputees of the civil war, welcomes the conviction on war crimes of former Liberian President Charles Taylor. Taylor was…
War Criminal Charles Taylor’s Daughter Defends Her Dad Apr 27, 2012 4:45 AM EDT This week, former Liberian President Charles Taylor was convicted of aiding and abetting war crimes in Sierra Leone. His daughter watched the U.N. tribunal in The Hague and spoke to Robtel Neajai Pailey. Charles Taylor only smiled once during the court…
Radio journalist Tecee Boley’s investigations on the water crisis in Liberia is featured in this PBS report. For full transcript of the show click here: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/globalhealth/jan-june12/africawater_04-25.html…
“The Costs for Girls: Why I Welcome Leaders’ Decision” by Mae Azango The sound of drums and sasa fills the air as little girls and young ladies leave the Sande Bush. They have completed the traditional bush school and sing and dance their way into this town in rural Liberia. Well-wishers from neighboring towns…
By Mae Azango “Some of these young boys are from broken homes. Sometimes it is peer pressure that causes many of the teen fathers to deny pregnancies.” But there are also other factors. – Ali Sylla, Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Counseling and Restorative Dialogue in Monrovia. Nathan became a young dad…
During President William Tubman’s Open Door Policy, Liberia was averaging double-digit growth rates. Being open for business, however, did not mean growth was open to all. In the 1960s, it was claimed that we had ‘growth without development’—economic activities from large-scale foreign concessions in iron ore, rubber, palm oil, and timber did not improve the…
The cultural practice of female genital cutting is rampant in Liberia, especially in the countryside. Parents send girls as young as infants to ceremonies conducted by a secretive indigenous religion known as the Sande to be cut without knowing the health risks involved. But openly talking about this secret rite of passage is taboo here. …
Clothing designer Geneva Garr supervises several men crouched over sewing machines surrounded by beautifully tailored dresses hanging for customers to see. Starting up with just one sewing machine on her porch, Garr, 37, now makes 72 outfits a week. Garr says she started the business in 2005 in Accra, Ghana and moved to Liberia in…
An opinion piece by Tetee Karneh. See original post here. Liberia is a little country of 3.5 million people basking in the mindset that because we, unlike most of the rest of Africa, were never colonized by foreign powers, we were not infected by alien cultures. But that mindset is wrong. Liberia’s openness to strangers…
Ma Sabah was only 13 years old when she was taken from Gbatallah in Bong County and forced into the Sande bush for a crime her mother committed in her village in 1976. The Sande bush is where women and girls are sent to be circumcised and groomed into women ready for marriage, as culture and tradition demand. See original story…
First appeared in Liberia’s FrontPage Africa newspaper March 1 Africa’s first post-independence president, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, urged colonial Africa to “seek ye first the political kingdom, and all else shall be added onto you.” Nkrumah was alluding to the biblical verse, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these…
Baby Blessed wriggles and wails in discomfort in his young mother’s lap. Winnie pulls out her breast to feed her sick child and quiet his cries. She looks out at the swampy backyard behind her home as if she would rather be any place other than here. By Mae Azango. Originally published in FrontPage Africa…
Names in this article have been changed to conceal the identities of gay persons mentioned. Jerome, 16, strides like he is a supermodel on a runway. He has a slender body, and his hair is cut short. The fashionable teen is wearing denim jeans. A white polo T-shirt bathed in dragon designs reveals his bare…
By NN fellow and FrontPage Africa editor Wade Williams MONROVIA, Liberia — Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf will be sworn in for her second term this Monday but the 73-year-old Nobel laureate begins her six-year term under a heavy cloud. An acrimonious election campaign against the main opposition party, Congress for Democratic Change (CDC), was…
Clarence Jackson is Editor-In-Chief at Radio Gbarnga and Regional Coordinator of the Press Union of Liberia for Bong, Nimba and Lofa Counties. He has been a journalist for more than fifteen years. Clarence is a prolific journalist whose reporting focuses Politics and Governance. He has also worked as correspondent from Central Liberia for several institutions…
It is often said in Liberia: “to spoil it is easy but to build it is hard.” So is the case with water and sanitation here. The 14-year civil war destroyed much of the water supply and sanitation facilities. People escaping brutal battles in the heart of the country relocated to Monrovia—overcrowding the city’s slums…
Having children early may seem like an adventure for many teenage girls, but most soon discover that this choice leads to lasting consequences. The high rate of teenage pregnancy increases the economic burden of Liberia by creating generation upon generation of very poor families. The majority of teen moms live at home with their parents,…
Photo by NN photography coach Glenna Gordon MONROVIA, Liberia — Election officials announced on Thursday that Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s only female president, had been re-elected by an overwhelming margin this week in a runoff vote that was marred by an opposition boycott. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, speaking to reporters on Thursday, said she would pursue…
By FrontPage Africa editor and New Narratives fellow Wade Williams Gloria Musu Scott sits behind her desk at the Capitol Building. The senator from Maryland County is in the process of clearing her office to return to her former life as a lawyer. She is among many women who lost their seats following our country’s…
In West Point, a shantytown community on the edge of the Atlantic, dozens of people endured long lines and the pouring rain to vote in this country’s second presidential elections since the end of 14 years of civil war. Frances Roberts, 53, arrived at the polling station at 4 a.m., four hours before voting commenced….
I squirmed when I saw the photo online of a female protester in her crisp white T-shirt, with ruby red liquid dripping down her neck and face. There were other photos in a series. One man lay on the naked carpet of a room, surrounded by the living, his thin vertical body lifeless. Another man…
