The Affiliation of Women and Children Rights Advocates, a group of women and children rights advocates in Liberia, has launched a call on the country’s Legislature to allocate funding in the 2021 Special budget to effectively combat rape and protect survivors of the menace.
In a released statement read by its spokesperson, leading child rights advocate, Satta Sheriff at the grounds of the Capitol Building, the group disclosed that more efforts are needed to actualize the President’s promise to ‘spare no effort in ensuring that the rape and SGBV epidemic scourging the country is curtailed’. The group pointed to evidence in the government’s decision not to include rape in the draft budget that has already been passed by the House of Representatives and is currently before the Senate for action.
“With sadness in our hearts and with deep disappointment in the government, we have realized that not a dollar was allocated in the 2021 Special National Budget for the fight against the rape project personally initiated by the President” the statement read.
The Group noted the importance of women and children and mentioned that the action by the Legislature, and the Ministry of Gender to defund the fight against Rape project is a blow to the fight against sexual and gender-based violence in Liberia.
The Group called strongly on the Legislature to take action and allocate funding for the fight against rape given that it has been declared as a national crisis. According to them, this will ensure justice for victims of sexual abuse, and provide for safety going forward.
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