As 1,251 SGBV Cases Reported In 5-months
By Garmah Never Lomo, garmahlomo@gmail.com
MONROVIA-Liberia-It has been revealed that a total number of 1,251 sexual violence cases were reported from across the country from January-May this year, as scores of women peacefully protest, accusing the national police of taking bribes in investigating rape cases.
Anti-rape campaigner on Thursday, August 20, 2020 engaged the Liberian National Police at their headquarters about the rise in rape cases, as they are the first who usually carry out arrest.
The campaigner under the banner, Campaign Against Rape and all Forms of Violence Against Women and girls, said compare to 2019 statistics, during the period of January to May, about 900 cases of rape were reported.
Among the 900 rape cases reported in 2019, 90% of the survivors were children and statistical trend sexual from the sexual Gender Based Violence Crimes Unit showed that rape is the most recurrent SGBV crime committed against women and girls in Liberia.
Statistics show that in 2018, approximately, 2,145 cases of sexual abused were reported with 98% females Victimized and 6% males.
In 2019, 2,590, cases were reported with 91% females and 9%males were victimized at the result of rape and sodomy.
According the campaigners, trending data also show that sodomy rape against boys is gradually on the rise.
Thirty two cases were prosecuted from January to June 2020 and said analysis is from the SGBV crimes unit at Ministry of Justice for the period of May 2020.
However, the problem of rape and sexual gender based violence cases attrition persists for decades and we been working to break the silence on rape and all forms of SGBV cases, because consistently the majority of rape and SGBV complaints weren’t reported to the police. And those that reported are unlikely to end in arrest and as a result very unlikely to end in conviction the campaigner said.
They added that the narrating is changing and need the police as partner in this fight.
The anti-rape campaigners want cases to be reported and once they are reported, the police must be very supportive through investigation and effecting arrest of the alleged rapist void of putting an additional trauma on the survivors and their parents including their guardians and activists or social workers who may be assisting the survivor access to referral pathway.
The campaigners have strongly warned the police to stop asking survivors who are already victimized for money or transportation to get to the crime scene something that is very common in the rural areas.
The police should conduct the preliminary investigation into all reported cases and forward the perpetrators to court in line with the law.
Police are yet to react to the women’s claims.