Sexual harassment is a pervasive issue that transcends geographic, cultural, and societal boundaries, and Africa’s oldest republic is no exception. It poses significant barriers to women’s empowerment in Liberia, a nation recovering from a 14-year civil conflict and striving for socio-economic advancement. Understanding the legal frameworks, societal attitudes, and challenges faced by survivors of sexual harassment in Liberia is critical for addressing this issue.

While Liberia has made a modest effort to establish legal measures to combat sexual harassment, addressing the high incidence of gender-based violence is challenging. Its pluralistic legal system is influenced by a combination of customary law and statutory law, with the former rooted in oral African traditions and the latter embedded in the Anglo-American common law. In some ways, the customary system can lead to harmful cultural practices, as highlighted by the Maputo Protocol 2003.

For parts of Indigenous Liberia, approximately 80 percent of the country, a pregnant woman could be harassed by strangers and family members in the nearby village throughout her gestation period to accept a dowry for the unborn child if she were a girl (see Article 15 of the Liberian Rules Governing the Hinterland 1949). In essence, being born a Liberian girl child could predetermine living a life of servitude sealed by sexual and gender-based harassment.

Even though Article 55 (g) of the Liberian Rules Governing the Hinterland prohibits dowries for girls under 15, there is no effective mechanism for enforcing this law in rural Liberia. Since its founding in 1822, formally enslaved refugees, aided by the American Colonisation Society, historically neglected infrastructural development in the ‘uncivilised bush’ by concentrating a centralised government in Monrovia (formerly Christopolis), the capital city.

Categorically, the transplantation of a foreign legal system – which has no ontological and epistemological relationship to Indigenous Liberians – is not only inherently elusive but also downright dispiriting. It exacerbates the existing challenges faced by women and girls, 60 percent of whom are illiterate, have limited access to health, and are excluded from the nation-building process. Moreover, the socio-cultural construct of women being passively confined to cooking in the kitchen, only speaking when spoken to by a husband hailed as the head of many wives, characterises the persistent struggles with sexual harassment and violence.

For instance, during a fieldwork visit in south-eastern Liberia, a teenage girl who was statutorily raped endured further stigma by being paraded through town while her mother searched for money to pay for petrol for the police investigation. While rape kits have been introduced in Liberia, their access and utility in the court system is negligible since there no forensic labs in the country. In some cases, an impregnated survivor must wait for the baby to be born so the prosecutor can phenotypically test whether the child resembles an alleged perpetrator.

For a patriarchal society where legal protection of women has been challenging, the creation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), followed by the establishment of a Special Court “Criminal Assizes ‘E’” 2008 with exclusive jurisdiction for prosecuting rape, and more recently, the Decent Work Act 2015 (see section 2.8), are all significant initiatives aimed at promoting gender equality, combating sexual and gender-based violence, and prohibiting sexual harassment in the workplace.

Recently, on 27 May 2024, the Monrovia City Court denied a commissioner of the Independent National Commission on Human Rights, Mohammed Fahnbulleh’s, motion to dismiss a sexual assault claim against him. Apart from the aforementioned, little has been reported since the publication of my chapter in the book, Sexual Harassment and the Law in Africa.

It is important to note that any law reform on the plague of sexual harassment in Liberia must begin with changing societal attitudes, dismantling harmful traditional practices, addressing corruption within the judiciary, and breaking down patriarchal structures that perpetuate violence against girls and women. Only through these transformative actions can Liberia hope to create a safer, more equitable society for women and girls across the nation.