PHOTO: Suspected perpetrator who raped the little girl
By Garmah Never Lomo, garmahlomo@gmail.com
A two-year-old girl, who allegedly raped in the Liberia’s northwestern Gbarpolu County by a man only identified as Joseph, is currently said to be in a critical condition.
Rape is a nonbailable crime in Liberia and the act has seen a sharp rise in recent years, which some time ago prompted President George Weah to declare rape a national emergency following intense street protests by anti sexual and gender based violence advocates.
Since the criminal act was committed, the condition of the baby girl is said to have worsen, with the survivor’s private part swelling.
The little 2-year-old rape survivor
The child was badly penetrated by the alleged perpetrator, who has since been charged with rape in violation of 14.70 of the revised penal code of the Republic of Liberia.
The alleged incident occurred over the weekend in Gbapolu County’s capital, Bopolu.
Defendant Joseph is said to be a classroom teacher at one of the public schools in Gbapolu County.
According to the child’s aunt, Josesph had gone to the victim’s mother claiming he was selling a flash drive (memory stick) in exchange for a four gigabyte memory chip, which the victim’s mother had.
Explaining the ordeal in an interview, she narrated that she had returned from Monrovia at 2:45pm GMT, when Joseph had asked the child’s mother to allow the little girl to accompany him, in order to bring the memory stick back to her mother.
She furthered explained that the victim’s mother observed blood stain on the survivor clothes after she and the perpetrator had returned from his house.
She added that it happened at the time when she and he sister, were preparing the things she had brought from Monrovia and according to her it was around around 3:13 in the afternoon hours.
The accused only identified as Joseph is a resident of the Dark Forest community; the same area where the victim lives.