MONROVIA — A current Afrobarometer survey reveals {that a} vital majority of Liberians imagine the police and courts ought to intensify efforts to guard girls and women from discrimination and harassment.
By Edwin Genoway [email protected]
The survey, performed in 2024 by the Middle for Democratic Governance (CDG), concerned 1,200 grownup Liberians and highlights persistent gender disparities in schooling, employment, and political participation.
The survey signifies that girls in Liberia are much less probably than males to realize increased ranges of schooling. Whereas 61% of males have accomplished secondary schooling, solely 42% of ladies have executed the identical.
On the post-secondary stage, 22% of males pursue increased schooling in comparison with simply 17% of ladies. These disparities are significantly pronounced in rural areas and amongst low-income communities, the place entry to high quality schooling stays restricted.
Within the financial sphere, girls face vital obstacles to employment and monetary independence. Solely 19% of ladies are employed, in comparison with 29% of males. Components contributing to this hole embody restricted entry to schooling, discriminatory hiring practices, and familial restrictions.
Roughly 30% of respondents report that girls are often prevented from working by their husbands or relations. Moreover, girls are much less probably than males to personal key belongings corresponding to cellphones, financial institution accounts, motor automobiles, and computer systems.
Girls stay considerably underrepresented in Liberia’s political panorama. As of April 2025, girls occupy solely 11% of seats within the nationwide legislature, properly beneath the sub-Saharan African common of 27.2%. Regardless of this, a majority of Liberians (78%) imagine that girls ought to have the identical likelihood as males to be elected to public workplace.
Nonetheless, many additionally acknowledge the challenges girls face in pursuing political careers, with 65% expressing issues about potential criticism or harassment from the group and 54% anticipating familial opposition.
The survey reveals robust public assist for gender equality. A major majority believes that girls ought to have the identical rights as males to personal and inherit land (85%) and to acquire paying jobs (59%).
Moreover, two-thirds (67%) of Liberians assert that the federal government ought to do extra to advertise equal rights and alternatives for girls. Gender-based violence emerged as a prime precedence concern, with many voters urging the federal government and society to take extra decisive motion to deal with this pervasive downside.
Liberia has established a authorized framework supporting gender equality, together with Article 11c of the Structure, which ensures equal safety beneath the regulation.
The nation has additionally developed a Nationwide Gender Coverage and a Nationwide Motion Plan to information its implementation. Moreover, Liberia is a signatory to a number of worldwide agreements selling girls’s rights.
Regardless of these commitments, activists argue that implementation stays inadequate, and ladies’s points proceed to be sidelined in nationwide improvement agendas.
