Source: The New Dawn
Women groups from diverse organizations here under the banner Women NGOs Secretariat, have threatened to display photographs of rape victims as means of claiming authorities' attention, if nothing is done to speedily adjudicate rape cases.
One of their heads, Sarah Allison, expressing frustration Tuesday to authorities of the Women and Children Protection Center or WACPS at the National Police Headquarters on Capitol Hill, said besides women that have been raped, too many kids have died from rape and sexual related offenses, but not much of such cases have been heard after they were reported.
Madam Allison called on the police to do more in putting stop to drugs trade among citizens and the security sector, noting that most rapists and other criminals commit crimes under drug influence.
Earlier, the Public Relations Officer for the Women NGOs Secretariat, Berttee Forkpabio, told The NewDawn Liberia that since Monday, they have been waging war against rape, alarming that the crime has become detestable in the Liberian society.
"We felt this is something detestable to our society. We are saying no to rape. We are observing 16 days of activism and we are saying no to rape; no to molestation of women and violence against women," she said.
Forkpabio said rape cases are on the dockets of courts and they are not being looked at "all because they are not being followed up," saying "and this is eating up our society."
She lamented that while women organizations and partners are pursuing cases, the crime continues in the society. "It is because the justice system is weak; this is why the issue of rape continues to perpetrate our society," she said. The women carried placards with anti-rape messages on them at the National Police Headquarters and the Judiciary yesterday.
But the Supervisor of WACPS, Deputy Police Commissioner Alphan B. Lumeh, said the police will do all it can to deal with issues of rape and send perpetrators to court, but it was not their responsibility to pressurize the court in terms of trial.
Commander Lumeh said while the police was in sympathy with the victims, their job ends when suspects are sent to court. He said at times, the police have to go on to re-arrest suspects they have already investigated, charged and sent to court. On the question of drugs raised by Madam Allison, the Deputy Police Commander confirmed that most crime suspects take in drugs before carrying on their acts.
"In my view, she's right. Every crime has a relation to drug - homicide, burglary, armed robbery, rape, and others. But we are fighting against these crimes," he said.
He said the police are just one arm of the justice system, saying, "We send the bad people to court after investigation, but don't have the responsibility to do what the court should do."
In February, Criminal Court "E" Judge, Sianeh Clinton Johnson, said prosecutor nolle prose quoi or abandoned 280 rape and sexual offense cases during the past seven terms of court here.
She told a gathering during the opening of court earlier this year that records before Court "E" revealed that since the court was established in 2009, a total of 34 cases have been tried out of which 18 guilty verdicts and 15 non-guilty verdicts were brought down.