IRC senior social worker Marian Rogers is speaking candidly about a subject most Liberians don’t like to discuss—gender-based violence. Her audience is a group of women—some old, some young, all poor—selling fruits and various wares on the streets of Monrovia.
“Hello, women! I’m very proud of you!” she cries, clapping her hands for dramatic effect. Soon, Marian has them singing along with her. “Together,” they chant, “we shall overcome gender-based violence!”
These women are residents of what’s known as the Chicken Soup Factory, named for the business that once thrived nearby. Now the neighborhood is little more than an urban slum. Bullet holes riddle the shanty houses, advertising the toll Liberia’s 14-year civil war has taken on the community. Less obvious are the private wounds that were inflicted on women and children when rebel forces captured the area.
A Recipe for Safety
Despite the fact peace has come to Liberia, sexual violence continues. "Gender-based violence is not easy for us to deal with because it is embedded in our culture and society,” Marian explains. “We try to educate women and children about what sexual violence looks like, so that when they see it, they understand that these things have consequences, and that they should report them rather than keeping it to themselves.”
The IRC works with local organizations to conduct house-to-house outreach drives, workshops, and mass-awareness activities as part of its three-tiered approach to this critical issue. The agency also advocates for the creation of new laws to protect women and children from violence and provide direct services and counseling to victimized women and children.
As the meeting at the Chicken Soup Factory draws to a close, one resident pulls Marian aside. Clad in a brightly colored skirt and headdress, Finda Saah is a peer educator who reports on the recent improvements she has seen with respect to gender-based violence.
“Most of the violence is going down,” Finda tells Marian. “It’s not like it was before. Things are getting under control. Before we were backward. We never knew anything—our eyes were closed. But now, we’re hoping we can climb to the top, to know everything and to live the way we are supposed to live.”
Marian echoes Finda’s sentiments. “Since the IRC came to this community, women are knowing their full rights.”
Both women believe the Chicken Soup Factory is making progress, but they also admit that sexual violence continues to occur far too often, both here and across all of Liberia. Solving the problem will take time and funding.
“My hope is for the women and the girls in Liberia to be empowered … so that tomorrow, they will be able to do things they couldn’t do before,” Marian concludes. “We want women to speak out. We want women to be part of decision making. We want women to be out there tomorrow advocating on the rights of other women so that Liberia will be a violence-free society.”
