Liberian Police Inspector works to end sexual and gender-based violence – Global Issues

“I am responsible for cases affecting women and children in Nimba County. The most common cases I handle here are rape, persistent non-support (non-payment of child support), and domestic violence. Rape is the most commonly reported of these cases. It’s a very difficult subject to work on, even for those of us with training and experience, because the effects of rape stay with the survivor for a lifetime.

When a child is raped, they receive counseling, medical and other support, but they will never fully recover from the trauma and even the physical harm. For this reason, I support the work of the Spotlight initiative to raise awareness and spread messages to prevent rape and abuse of women and children. It is important that we work very hard to prevent this violence and to punish the perpetrators.

Spotlight Initiative Liberia/Helen Mayelle

“Women are heard”

After COVID-19 and Ebola, we saw a lot of rape cases because abusers had an advantage when children were at home. Women and girls are very vulnerable populations…they have always been vulnerable. It’s about now that women come on board and be heard.

We have been trained in various areas of dealing with sexual and gender-based violence and working with rape survivors. Spotlight has a team that can come and monitor us, follow up on cases that we’ve documented and cases that are escalated to court. They also collect data on cases.

Through Spotlight, we’ve seen more women and girls reporting cases themselves. Previously, this was done through other community members who have an understanding of the law and judicial process, but with an awareness of how cases are reported [women and girls] come here openly.

Spotlight also renovated our office building and provided us with chairs, desks, and computers for our work. They gave us a motorcycle so we could follow up cases from remote communities.

Spotlight provided posters with messages to “stop rape” and others with “rape is a crime.” Some posters explain that there are people to help rape victims and where to report abuse. They also have messages for the perpetrators that “if you commit this crime, you will be punished”. People read these posters and change their behavior. Victims and reporters now know that they are protected by the law when they report it. They know there are people who will help them.