PHOTO: The victim’s grandmother seen in bewilderment
The alleged rape of a 13-year-old student by a Teacher at a public school near Kakata, Margibi County, nearly 70 kilometers from Monrovia, adding to the long list of rape of miners reported across Liberia in recent times.
According to Liberia’s Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection women and girls constitute 92.4 percent of Gender Based Violence cases in this West African country.
This makes women and girls the most vulnerable people to rape and various kinds of gender-based violence
Quoting the statistics for the first quarter of 2018, Minister Williametta Saydee Tar said last November: “Sadly, rape accounts for 61 percent of the abuses, and increased significantly by five percent as compared to 2017 first quarter report,”
A Teacher of the Fasia Kromah public school identified as Jesse Smith, age 39 has allegedly raped the teenage student. Local community radio I in the area said that a medical report from the CH. Rennie Hospital in Kakata showed that the 13-year-old student was actually raped.
In an interview with the Grandmother of victim, Madam Garmah Mulbah said the victim was on her way to the school campus, because they were told by school authority to clean up the campus since school is about to close.
But according to her, when the victim started her journey to the school campus, the alleged suspect Jesse Smith pull her into the reed bush asking the minor for sex. After she resisted, Teacher Smith then allegedly sexually assaulted her last Friday.
The victim’s grandmother, who the little girl lives with, said after the incident the child was afraid to tell her but told a friend identified as Josephine to tell her grandmother.
But the friend too was also afraid to give the information to her grandmother.
Explaining further, Madam Mulbah added that a Sunday later, the girl was raped by the alleged suspect for the second time. Josephine then still did not tell her about the act perpetrated by Teacher Smith.
Josephine rather went on to give the information to her friends and some of those friends then told the victim’s grandma sister’s son who later divulved the information to his mother.
Meanwhile, the suspect was arrested by police and is currently undergoing investigation. Report by Garmah Never Lomo
Photo credit: Classic FM