BUCHANAN, Liberia — The sun is high over the Buchanan Renewables nursery, a green expanse of 400,000 tiny seedlings. Theresa Doe hunches over one seedling, grafting a Malaysian clone that will produce a high-yielding rubber tree. “It’s my living,” she says, her eyes fixed on the plant. Doe and some 500 employees of this Canadian…
LIBERIA: VERY RICH, OR VERY POOR
MONROVIA—It is after 8 o’clock in the evening on the Barnersville estate, a low-income housing project on the outskirts of the capital of Liberia. The entire area is dark. A few candles illuminate small shops along the road. A path leads to Kollie Yard, a cluster of faded whitewashed houses surrounding a sand pit. The…
‘Dry Bones Cry’ Time to Bury Liberia’s War Dead?
Two white stars painted on the basketball court at the Lutheran Church on 15th Street are all that mark the buried remains of more than 500 people killed in the infamous 1990 massacre here. On that July night, Liberians fleeing for their lives thought they had found a safe haven in the church compound. Surely,…
NN Executive Director Prue Clarke and advisor Agnes Umunna on Women and Crisis Panel
From Congo to Liberia to Afghanistan and Bosnia, women continue to bear the brunt of conflict. As many as three in four women were brutally raped in Liberia’s civil war. The carnage in Congo has gone on for 13 years with no sign of stopping. They are victims of an insidious new development in warfare…
The Power of One: Hanna Slocum Changing Women’s Lives
The West African country of Liberia is considered one of the world’s worst places to be a woman. In the aftermath of the country’s brutal civil war, women have limited access to medical care, jobs, and education. Rape is so common that many women don’t know it’s a crime. And most women raise their children…
Liberian Woman in Running for International Courage Award
Gbaye Town, Margibi County — A Liberian lady is being considered for the International Women of Courage award, given each year to leading women’s advocates from around the world. The awards ceremony is held in Washington and attended by leading women such as First Lady Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton….
Sonnie: In Her Own Words
In Liberia, financial pressures prevent many journalists from properly doing their jobs. Though it’s rarely discussed, it’s widely known that reporters take gifts — bribes — from politicians or others to either bury stories or to write promotional ones. Sonnie Morris, a Liberian radio journalist, earned just $40 a month. As a single mother of…
Child and Teen Prostitution Flourishes in Monrovia Grow
Teenage sex workers say the government has failed to deliver on any of the promises they made after reports in several Liberian media houses last year revealed Liberian girls were forced into prostitution to survive. After the New Narratives story was published in Front Page Africa and aired on Sky FM President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf…
Liberia Border Tense as Ivorian Crisis Intensifies
Security along the border between Ivory Coast and Liberia is under threat as Ivorian cross to the Liberian side at will, according to UN officials working at the border. Officials here say the Liberian security presence here is ineffective. Outtara fighters caused panic among refugees in Zleh, a border town in Grand Gedeh County, on…
As Ivory Coast Heads for Civil War, Thousands Seek Safety in Liberia.
TOETOWN, Liberia — As gun battles between Ivory Coast’s rival armed forces intensify, throngs of refugees are fleeing the fighting for the relative safety of neighboring Liberia. About 90,000 Ivorians have crossed into eastern Liberia, according to U.N. refugee experts, who expect that number to swell to 500,000 if Ivory Coast slides back into civil…
In Liberia, Bones of War Victims Surfacing in Mass Graves
MONROVIA, Liberia — On Wednesday, Liberians will honor the memory of two former presidents, William Tolbert and his successor, Samuel K. Doe, slain during two decades of fighting that started with a 1980 military coup. The exact whereabouts of the ex-presidents’ remains is unknown. Both men were tossed into mass graves along with thousands of…
Liberian Teen Prostitutes Face Abuse
MONROVIA (Reuters Trustlaw) – When darkness falls on Monrovia and most of the Liberian capital’s half a million inhabitants return home to rest, an army of teenage girls as young as 13 sets out to work as underage prostitutes, charging as little as 5 Liberian dollars (3 U.S cents) to clients who often abuse them. “I…
As Bones Surface, Massacre Survivors Demand Collective Burial
During the Liberian civil war, tens of thousands of dead were buried in unmarked graves. Mass graves litter the country including the capital city Monrovia. As Fabine Kwiah reports some leaders are calling for these graves to be excavated and the bodies reburied. …
Liberian Government Neglects Mass Graves
It’s been seven years since the end of the civil war in Liberia, but there are still some gruesome reminders of the past. Mass graves haunt the capital. Former TRC Chairman Jerome Verdier is among several leading human rights advocates demanding the graves be opened and the dead be given proper burials. Tetee Gebro reports…
United Nations launches investigation into peacekeepers use of child and teen prostitutes after NN reporting exposes widespread practice
The UN Mission in Liberia has launched an investigation into the use of prostitutes by it’s 8000-strong force of peacekeepers in the country after NN fellows Clara Mallah and Tecee Boley reported on several young teenage girls who claimed to have slept with peacekeepers since they were as young as 9. The story entitled: “I…
“I Sleep with More than 20 Men a Night.” Teen Prostitution Grows in Monrovia
Rose is 15, and has been selling sex for money since the final chapter of the war in 2003, when she was eight. “I got on the street during World War III to prostitute. I am on the street to look for a living because I am from a poor background and I got no…
Fabine Kwiah Fellow
Fabine Kwiah is a reporter and newscaster at Radio Veritas where she presents the weekly Voices of Women program. She has been a New Narratives fellow since July 2011. In 2012 Fabine’s report on the impact of Liberia’s high rate of teenage pregnancy won her the national women’s reporting award. Fabine became one of a…
$5LD for Sex
By day, the infamous Anthony’s Provision Shop at the Lapazee, Airfield Community in Monrovia sells soap, creams and candies. By night, children use it to sell sex. “I have been on the street for so many years. Seven years on the street. I was just a baby. My parents are all dead and they left…
3 out of 8 Rape Victims Aged Under 12
Three-year-old Love walks uncomfortably into this clinic for victims of rape. A pretty little girl with braids, Love (not her real name) looks up nervously at her weeping mother. Love’s father is shaking with rage. “I just heard last night that some teenage boys had been tampering with her,” the father says to the clinician…
As Charles Taylor’s War Crimes Trial Nears End, Many Liberians Hope for His Return
MONROVIA, Liberia — With President Charles Taylor’s war crimes trial in The Hague nearing an end after three years, many Liberians hope he will be brought home — to a hero’s welcome. Take Fasu Donzo, a lanky motorbike taxi driver. Now 31, he fought as a child soldier in Taylor’s army and was known as…