Kahn Chea, Grand Bassa- It is not far away from Liberia’s second city, Buchanan. It is a village that goes by the name Kahn Chea. Women here are like women in most Liberian villages. They are faced with the regular ups and downs life has to offer in these areas- having a husband, bearing children, and managing a family.
As if the burden they carry is not enough, they are compounded by the national scourge of violence against women, difficulties in accessing health facilities, food insecurity, and lack of quality education for their kids who made it past their fifth birthdays.
Some children of Kahn Chea Town
Chain cupped into her pam and face lifted in the air, her gaze looks pass the group of children gathered here. Alice Chea a 33-year-old mother of two tells how she must endure pains in exchange for support from her husband.
“When our husbands get vex, they can beat us, but we can accept it because the suffering is too much.”
Speaking to a Team of Gender Reporters on Thursday, July 12, Madam Chea like many other females in Kahn Chea explained that the high-level of poverty in the village has left them with no options but to allow their husbands beat on them apparently as a means of venting out their frustration over the hardship.
From January to June, 58 cases of gender-based violence have been gathered and simple assault and persistent non-support is topping said compilation of data. An Inspector of the Women and Children Protection Unit of the Grand Bassa Police Detachment, Comfort Dennis Sackie, informed this team of reporters that of the 58 cases, 11 have already been arraigned before the courts, 23 pending court processing and 27 withdrawn.
Inspector Dennis Sackie indicated that interferences from families during the adjudication of cases which border on violence against women are taking a toll on efforts being exerted to protect women, girls and their children. Her Unit, she intimated is carrying out massive sensitization/awareness especially on abandoned cases in Buchanan and adjoining villages.
Another phenomenon that is contributing to increased insecurity in this part of the country as earlier specified is lack of health facility to cater to pregnant women and new born. According to Mary Lines, a traditional midwife in Kahn Chea, normal birth givers receive her care while other women showing serious complications are often referred to Buchanan City.
“When we can’t deal with the case, we call the ambulance and if that don’t work, we put the patient on hammock and take them to Buchanan for delivery. All our deliveries processes have been successful. There has been no deaths or complications,” Madam Lines narrated.
In her process to carry out her work, the elderly midwife continued, “I used to receive materials from the government hospital, but I no longer receive those items therefore after a delivery in the village, I throw some of the used items away while I boil the important ones then I transfer the patient to the hospital. I have trained two other persons as midwives.”
According, to a UNICEF 2016 statistics on new born and maternal deaths, with 1, 072 maternal deaths for every 100, 000 births, Liberia has one of the highest maternal mortality ratios in the world. And the loss of blood is the leading cause of said deaths at 25 percent, but the traditional birth attendant in Kahn Chea disclosed that their village has not witness death at childbirth despite the constraints.
Meanwhile, an elder of the village, Alphanso Whehgar told reporters that issues of food insecurity is among their major challenges. People in the Grand Bassa Region of Liberia mainly rely on cassava for food and also grow it as cash crop. Its products when harvested are sold in nearby Buchanan to buy rice and other items for individual households in Kahn Chea.
“We only get cassava farm. We can make cassava farm. We can buy rice. There is a reason why we don’t make rice farm; because no assistance. No coordination in making farms. We buy rice L$50 per cup. L$10 for a single Maggie cube,” the resident complained. The women here also heavily participate in the labor-intensive preparation of charcoal which include the risky cutting of log like woods, its transportation and corresponding processing involving fire.
Elder Whehgar said instead of armed robbery or ritualistic killings, animals are their major enemies, because their crops are eaten or damaged by birds and ground hogs and that they were unable to grow rice due to the lack of rice seed.
Elder Whehgar
“We are living here with God on our side. No security, no hospital and even from here to the nearby school is 25 minutes if our children are walking and 10 minutes if they are to ride motorbikes. Transportation is very high,” the elder remarked.
Mr. Whehgar said the only one handpump in their village provided by the Nyonblee Care Foundation is barely in good working condition, leaving the people of Kahn Chea with no option but to fetch water from the nearby creek for drinking and to honor other household errands.
Kahn Chea also has only one toilet facility catering to this town of about 175 inhabitants. Due to the strain this one facility, the residents are constrained to use the bushes for defecation.
*This report was produced by reporters who participated in a recent gender sensitive reporting training held by UN Women. The content however does not necessarily reflect the views of UN Women.