-Says most of them are silent on SGBV issues
By Mark N. Mengonfia
The Association of Female Lawyers of Liberia (AFELL) has frowned at lawmakers for what they called “being silent on issue of Sexual Gender Based Violence (SGBV).”
Speaking recently in Bomi County at the Women Dialogue Retreat organized by the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, the President of the AFELL, Vivian Doe Neal said the issue of Sexual gender based violence is moving like a hurricane that is destroying lives of women, girls and boys, leaving some of them dead and some with lasting trauma.
She said it is so because majority of Liberian lawmakers are silent on issues of SGBV indicating that no lawmaker has put a bill on the floor to bring relief to the victims of SGBV.
But the female lawyers President said some Lawmakers “ are rather finding means to water down the only instrument we have for redress.”
Atty Neal also said “We like to be clear about the issue of whether or not rape is a billable offence, for this audience and the public, Rape is a bailable offense and the law is very clear and not ambiguous. The rape law says for first-degree felony, Rape should be treated as capital offense. Capital offense is bailable, unless proof is evidence and presumption great”.
The AFELL President thanked President George Weah for recently signing into law the land rights Act without delay.
Capitol Building, seat of the Liberian Legislature
“We also like to applaud civil society organizations working group, especially the Women Land Rights Taskforce and partners who worked endlessly to ensure that the bill became gender sensitive,” the AFELL President added.
Madam Neal said that several issues were raised by the CSO working group and the taskforce she highlighted the one that has to do with presumptive or customary marriage of the Civil procedural Law (1973), Chapter 24, Section 24.3 (3),which is captured under the definition of marriage in the Land Rights Act.
“This is a good step, but we need something more concrete. We need to have an exclusive bill that will protect the rights of those women who find themselves living with men for a protracted period without marriage. The rights of their children also need to be protected under this marriage, a bill that will turn their cohabitation of many years into marriage accepted by law, a bill that will give them rights to properties acquired along with their partners, rights to their own children and dignity,” the Female Lawyers Association President said.
When the AFELL president stated to speak on the co-habitation issue, women who have gone to attended gave her a standing ovation in acceptance of her view on the matter.
The AFELL president told those women and Liberians at the program Co-habitation Bill was once introduced by Cllr. Gloria Musu Scott but was “killed” or not received the support to have it as a law.
She told the audience that they at the Association of Female Lawyers of Liberia have decided to resurrect “Co-habitation Bill”.
She called for all women throughout Liberia as well as the civil society to join the campaign to ensure that the proposed Bill becomes a law that will protect women and their children.
“This is possible in Sierra Leone, when a man and a woman live together for five years or more, they are considered husband and wife under the customary law, whether or not the man pays the dowry of the woman, the parliament in Kenya passed a law that when two people cohabit for six months, automatically they become married by law. While country like Uganda is for one year and automatically you become married by the law,” the AFELL President added.