IN PENSON TOWN, rural Montserrado, a 57-year-old grandmother was raped in broad daylight whereas making an attempt to earn lower than US$10 to feed eight grandchildren. That alone is a nationwide shame. However what adopted could also be worse.
AFTER SURVIVING THE violence, humiliation, and trauma of sexual assault, she was compelled to navigate a justice system that handled her not as a sufferer in search of safety, however as a buyer anticipated to pay.
PAY FOR A medical referral. Pay for paperwork. Pay to move her alleged attacker to jail. Pay even for the suspect to sleep in a single day in a police cell.
LIBERIA’S LAWS ARE clear. The Sexual Offences Court docket procedures explicitly state that no charges must be charged in legal circumstances — not for submitting, not for processing paperwork, not for official companies. But on this case, the regulation seems to have been diminished to ink on paper, meaningless to a poor rural girl who can’t learn the very paperwork which are supposed to guard her.
THIS IS NOT merely bureaucratic dysfunction. It’s systemic cruelty.
POVERTY SHOULD NOT Resolve Who Will get Justice. The grandmother, recognized solely as “E.” to guard her identification, lives by panning for gold in muddy streams. She doesn’t have financial savings. She doesn’t have affect. She doesn’t have an training. What she has is braveness.
SHE REPORTED HER attacker. Group members apprehended him. Native leaders rallied round her. However practically each step of the method required cash — cash she didn’t have.
WHEN THE CAREYSBURG COURT allegedly demanded L$4,000 to move the suspect to South Seashore Central Jail, the neighborhood needed to gather “small-small” contributions — L$20, L$50 at a time — simply to maintain the case alive.
THIS IS NOT JUSTICE. It’s extortion wrapped in process. If a rural city should crowdfund imprisonment for an accused rapist, the state has already failed.
THE LAW EXISTS. The Enforcement Does Not. Officers admit the charges are “procedurally flawed.” Guarantees of investigation have been made. However the issue is bigger than one case, one officer, or one court docket.
THE SEXUAL AND Gender-Based mostly Violence (SGBV) Crimes Unit reportedly operates on roughly US$12,000 a 12 months nationwide. That’s not a severe funding in justice. That’s symbolic budgeting.
MEANWHILE, GOVERNMENT DATA present rape stays probably the most reported type of gender-based violence in Liberia, with roughly 2,700 circumstances recorded in 2024 alone. Advocates warn that almost all survivors by no means report in any respect.
WHY WOULD THEY? When reporting means paying. When pursuing justice means humiliation. When the system meant to guard you turns into one other impediment.
FOR RURAL WOMEN with out training or revenue, the boundaries will not be summary. They’re sensible. Transport prices. Medical prices. Casual “charges.” Misplaced workdays. Social stigma. Confusion about paperwork they can’t learn. Justice turns into one thing it’s essential to afford.
LIBERIA HAS PASSED legal guidelines. The Home Violence Act of 2019 supplies for compensation for survivors by perpetrators. The Sexual Offences Court docket framework prohibits charges. Ministries exist. Models have been fashioned. However buildings with out sources are hole. Legal guidelines with out enforcement are theatre.
IF THE GOVERNMENT can fund elections, infrastructure, and worldwide engagements, it might fund rape investigations correctly. If police stations can detain suspects, they’ll transport them with out charging victims. If courts can schedule hearings, they’ll achieve this with out inserting the monetary burden on traumatized grandmothers.
THE REAL QUESTION isn’t whether or not the system lacks cash. It’s whether or not defending poor girls ranks excessive sufficient in nationwide priorities.
JUSTICE MUST NOT Rely On Charity. What occurred in Penson City exposes a harmful fact: in rural Liberia, justice typically relies upon not on the regulation, however on neighborhood generosity.
THAT IS UNSUSTAINABLE. And it’s unjust. Survivors of rape ought to robotically obtain free medical examination and therapy, psychological counseling, authorized steering, clear documentation they perceive, safety from intimidation and transportation help when required.
NOT AS FAVORS. Not as charity. However as rights. When a rape survivor says, “I don’t know tips on how to learn and write,” the state has an excellent higher obligation to make sure she isn’t exploited by the very establishments meant to defend her.
THIS CASE IS MORE than a tragic story. It’s a check. Will investigations into unlawful charges end in actual accountability? Will funds be allotted to make sure rural SGBV items can perform successfully? Will officers refund cash wrongfully collected? Will methods be redesigned so no survivor ever pays once more?
OR WILL THIS change into one other headline that fades whereas the boundaries stay? Liberia can’t declare progress on girls’s rights whereas rural survivors should fund their very own justice. It can’t converse of rule of regulation whereas casual funds decide whether or not a suspect reaches jail.
A GRANDMOTHER IN Penson City did her half. She spoke up. She endured. She continued. Now the state should do its half.
JUSTICE IS NOT a commodity. It’s a constitutional promise. And guarantees, particularly to probably the most susceptible, should not include a price ticket.
