New York City – A young girl stood weeping while women danced happily around her. A grand celebration was already underway for the girl’s rite of passage. It would end with her circumcision and the women rejoicing. Against her will, the young girl who they called Ekankama, was knocked to the ground and held down by…
Perched on vast acres of land dotted with concrete buildings marked in colorful chalk, Buduburam Refugee Camp on the outskirts of Accra, Ghana, has always been a place of transit for Liberians. Camp dwellers are like expectant passengers on a flight whose destination is still undetermined. Most of them hope to land in America, or…
NN is proud to announce our reporter Mae Azango, of FrontPage Africa, has been awarded a newly created reporting fellowship in honor of Minnie Lee Walker. The fellowship is given by the Alliance for East Africa, an organization that supports grass roots programs in Africa. It was started by Mrs Walker’s daughter Jean Wr. The…
One would never know how real or powerful fear is unless he or she experiences it. I lived with fear for over three weeks after I did a story on female genital cutting that was published on March 8, 2012. I knew this story would attract attention because we published it on International Women’s Day. …
Brook Gladstone intro: When Liberian journalist Mae Azango wrote an article about the taboo topic of female genital mutilation, she and her nine year-old daughter became the targets of multiple threats. Brooke talks to Mae about her reporting that forced the Liberian government to finally take a public position on the practice. GUESTS: Mae Azango…
by New Narratives Fellow Robtel Neajai Pailey I was in The Hague on April 26 when they convicted Charles Taylor. Appearing like a child being publicly scolded, he stood on seemingly wobbly legs, head bowed, when they pronounced him guilty on 11 counts of crimes against humanity for aiding and abetting rebels during Sierra Leone’s…
Labor Pains In the midst of a civil war, becoming a mother was its own battle. Melinda Gates has me thinking about the time I became a mother. When the Gates Foundation co-chair recently said that improving family planning for the global poor is her new personal mission — and that she is making it a top…
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…
Liberian journalist hides, for reporting sexual mutilation Mae Azango is a journalist in Liberia. She’s in hiding fearing for her safety after breaking a national taboo and writing a story about a secret sect that practices female genital mutilation. (Photo: New Narratives) On March 30 it was reported thattraditional tribal leaders have agreed to…
Monrovia, Liberia: When Kulah Borbor’s daughter was 13 years old, she asked her mother if she could join Liberia’s secret Sande Society. Most Liberian women are members of the Sande, so her daughter’s request was nothing unusual. But Borbor, a gender-based violence officer with the West Point Women for Health and Development Organisation, immediately discouraged…
Monrovia – Traditional leaders and government ministers have revealed a secret agreement to shut down the activities of Liberia’s secret women’s society, the Sande, for an indefinite period. The deal will see all Sande land turned over to the leaders of the Poro men’s society. A ceremony handing over the land from the women to…
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. …
DOCUMENT – LIBERIAN POLICE MUST TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION TO PROTECT JOURNALIST AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC STATEMENT 13 March 2012 Liberian Police Must Take Immediate Action to Protect Journalist Mae Azango, an investigative journalist based in Monrovia, is receiving death threats after publishing a story in FrontPage Africa uncovering the practice of female genital mutilation of girls [FGM]…
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…
The Committee to Protect Journalists has called on the Government of Liberia to protect NN Fellow Mae Azango and her newspaper FrontPage Africa after threats they received for a story on female genital cutting in the country. Mae faced big challenges convincing victims to talk about the practice because it is part of an ancient…
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…
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…
NN fellow Wade Williams and photographer Chase Walker have published the first interviews with openly gay men in Liberia. The story was published as gay rights activists have been attacked and faced death threats in the country. The reporting took considerable bravery on the part of our reporters, the interview subjects and FrontPage Africa editor…
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…
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…
