As Liberia commemorates 20 years since the end of the civil conflict that left devastated the country and left 250,000 people dead, a survey of first-time voters conducted in two of the country’s biggest counties found overwhelming support for a court….
Drug abuse is a growing problem in Liberia. There is no reliable data on user numbers but one study, by the United Nations Population Fund, found a staggering one in five Liberian youth take narcotics. …
In 2012 Cecelia’s life fell apart. Struggling to take care of nine children after the sudden death of her husband, she turned to her oldest son, then in his early 20s, for help. But he was lost to the family, a year into a drug addiction that was destroying his life….
MONROVIA, Liberia—With less than three months until vital presidential and legislative elections, Liberia’s political parties have defied their own commitments to fill 30 percent of their candidate ranks with women….
When he took office in 2018 President George Weah promised his government would lift one million Liberians out of poverty by the end of his six year term. Half Liberia’s five million people live below in the poverty line. In January the Weah government declared a victory that surprised many people: it claimed to have…
Community members here in Tartweh and Drapoe chiefdoms are fuming over a range of what they claim are violations of Liberian laws by the country’s forest management body the Forestry Development Agency….
In part two of this two-part investigation Anthony Stephens and Tina S. Menhpaine report with New Narratives on the obstacles that doomed a $3m EU-funded waste management project….
Esther thought she was boarding a flight that would take her to a lucrative job in Dubai. Instead, she landed in Muscat, Oman, where she was beaten and sold into modern-day slavery. This is the incredible story of how Esther, and hundreds of other Liberian women, worked together to free themselves from human trafficking syndicates. …
In this two-part investigation, Anthony Stephens and Tina S. Menhpaine report with New Narratives on a US$3 million European Union project that was meant to solve Monrovia’s trash crisis….
Liberia’s media institutions received a major boost when the Swedish Embassy in Monrovia funded a digital revenue workshop with regional pioneers Premium Times aimed at helping media learn to raise independent revenue from online sources and donors. The “Hack and Hackers” Digital Transformation for Newsroom training provided Liberian media and technologists the opportunity to learn and conceive new and innovative products to generate revenue. …
Monrovia – It is two years since Sylvester Saye Lama lost his wife Gifty, the breadwinner of his family, under unusual circumstances. Gifty was one of four government auditors, tasked with uncovering government corruption, that were found dead in the space of weeks. Their deaths shocked the country, scared anti-corruption activists into silence, and raised…
Three months after the government raced an act through the Legislature overhauling the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission, Liberia’s independent corruption watchdog has almost ceased functioning, all but ending scrutiny of government corruption in the runup to next year’s election. A source inside the Commission, who requested anonymity for fear of losing their job, said prosecutions have…
President Weah promised to set up a special committee to look into sexual and gender-based crimes. He promised a special prosecutor to handle rape cases, a national sex offender registry, and a national security task force to handle sexual and gender-based violence. The president said he had allocated $US2m in emergency funding to the problem.
But a year on, nothing has been heard of the committee or government plans to address the problem. Activists are bitterly disappointed….
One of the most high-profile Liberians in the United States has lost his job after being caught up in the sexual harassment scandal that took down New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Alphonso David, 50, was the head of the Human Rights Campaign, the most powerful group lobbying for the rights of LGBTQ Americans, until last…
It will come as no surprise to most Liberians that they are getting poorer. The average Liberian now lives on just $570 a year, down from $650 in 2013 according to the World Bank. That makes Liberia among the ten poorest nations in the world. It may surprise Liberians then, that their lawmakers are among…
Listen here: Liberia is one of just three West African nations where female genital cutting is legal. New Narratives’ Evelyn Kpadeh Seagbeh finds strong resistance to the bill from traditional leaders and little political will to challenge them. At the same time membership of traditional societies is plummeting.This story was a collaboration with Ok FM…
In part two of this two-part series with New Narratives, Evelyn Kpadeh Seagbeh finds Liberians are abandoning the Sande traditional society leading some leaders to resort to kidnapping and forced cutting. MOUNT BARCLAY, Montserrado – Deborah Parker was 15 when she was sent to a “Bush school” run by the Sande traditional society in her home…
Liberia is one of just three West African nations where female genital cutting is legal. In this two-part series with New Narratives Evelyn Kpadeh Seagbeh finds strong resistance to the bill from traditional leaders and little political will to challenge them. At the same time Sande’s membership is plummeting. MOUNT BARCLAY, Montserrado – 18-year-old Dearest is one…
GARPUE TOWN, Grand Bassa County – Schools are now open in Liberia, but 14-year-old Tutugirl has not joined her classmates. Tutugirl says it has been impossible since she returned injured and traumatized from the “bush school” where she and her friends were forcefully taken after they were kidnapped from this town in September. While she…
In part three of this three-part series Anthony Stephens looks at the Liberian government’s efforts to get tough on human trafficking. In September 2021 the Liberian government sent a signal it was getting tough on human trafficking. The Legislature passed a revision to a 2005 law increasing the prison sentence for anyone found guilty of…
MONROVIA – A disgraced agent of the National Security Agency has gone on trial with his brother for allegedly taking payments from international trafficking agents to mislead young Liberian women into traveling to the Middle Eastern country of Oman where they were to work as domestic servants. The indictment alleges Arthur Chan-Chan, and his brother…
