CEE TOWN, River Cess – For months, residents in this area of Gbarsaw Clan have watched with increasing alarm as hundreds of men with heavy machinery have cut down trees and hauled them away. In March, residents told The Bush Chicken that the land – more than 600 acres according to the local Community Land Development Management…
VONDEH TOWN, River Cess – The people of this area celebrated in 2019 when a forestry company began operations here. The five-year Social Agreement signed with the company, African Wood and Lumber, an Italian-owned company, was supposed to deliver the community US$5,000 each year in scholarship funds, US$15,000 in land rental fees, two feeder roads,…
As the changing climate impacts more and more people worldwide, there are renewed efforts to protect the planet’s forests. Trees soak up the carbon that is the worst factor in causing climate change. Liberia’s forest is one of the largest remaining. But millions of Liberians rely on the forest’s bounty for their survival. As the…
MONROVIA – Waste plastic is becoming a scourge around the world but it is especially true here in Liberia’s capital city and its satellite sister, Paynesville. Discarded plastic is choking waterways, blocking drains, killing fish, and leaching harmful chemicals into the water and soil. By Tina S. Mehnpaine, with New Narratives With poor or limited waste management…
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…
In 2016 US-based Bridge International Came To Save Liberia’s Schools. In the first of a two-part investigation with New Narratives Eric Opa Doue finds Bridge schools doing little better than state schools. YARPAH TOWN, River Cess County – Babygirl Smith helps her mother to sell snacks at the town market every Monday. The 17-year-old should…
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….
It was one of the most shocking events of the Liberian civil war. In April 1900 troops with then-President Samuel Doe’s Special Anti-Terrorist Unit shot and hacked to death 600 people including babies taking refuge in Monrovia’s St Peters Lutheran Church. Images of the carnage were broadcast around the world. The massacre kicked off a…
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…
Snails are highly nutritious according to experts. They are rich in calcium, a mineral associated with healthy bones and teeth. No one knows when the people of Liberia began eating snails. The nutritious mollusk found growing wild in forests and swamps, has been in the diet for as long as anyone could remember. But before…
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…
By Nemenlah Cyrus Harmon with New Narratives WEST POINT BEACH, Monrovia – Food is getting scarcer in Liberia. People can feel it every day in rice shortages at the market and higher prices. The pandemic and the war in Ukraine have played a role but the biggest factor is climate change and it’s only going to…
Liberia has the lowest average fish per capita consumption rate in the Manor River region according to a USAID and ECOWAS reports. Each Liberian consumes an average of just fives kilograms a year although the average should be at 23.5kg per person the reports say. As Nemenlah Cyrus Harmon reports for Spoon FM experts say…
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…
Massa Kandakai, the head of over three hundred FGM practitioners in Montserrado County, says she along with her women have fulfilled their part of the bargain with UN Women by closing all bush schools in Sonkay Town and Todee in Montserrado. Kandakai says UN Women should uphold the agreement by continually supporting them – with monthly salaries, access to cell phone networks, fishponds and processors for making Farina or flour from cassava and potatoes. The women say they will revert to the practice if their requests are not met….
