NACROG Report Indicates Child Abuses
By Helroz Zorleh
The National Child Rights Observatory Group [NACROG] has reported that several Liberian children suffered trafficking and murder because of neglect on the part of their parents.
According to the NACROG, at least there was one case of a male child been sodomized in the country..
“The current state of Liberia as a post conflict nation has a grave consequences on children, the most vulnerable segment of the population,” NACROG situational report stated.
The NACROG report reads: “ Illegal detention, 43.6% (191) cases of violation documented, four of these cases were referred to and or heard; thirteen ongoing while 174 were resolved. Torture: 4.8% (21) cases of violations. Abandonment: 6.6% (29) cases of violations. Ritualistic killing: 0.5% (2) cases reported. According to the Group, Montserrado, and Nimba counties have the highest rate of incidents children whose rights have been abused
According to the report, there are some unauthorized institutions, including group of people who ramble into villages to adopt children with fabulous promises to care for their well beings, instead the children are kept in orphan homes to be used as stooges of profiteering from donors.
The document which was collected from January 2007 to December 2007 also compiled several other acts of violence against children which includes rape, abandonment, neglect, illegal detention, torture, abduction as well as adoption and physical abuse.
According to the report, children were repeatedly forced into early marriage and killed through ritualistic means. The report by the organization indicates that there are some 438 cases of child rights violation in the country.
At a press conference in Monrovia, the child rights advocate told reporters that 90% of street selling children were those taken from their parents in the rural part of Liberia and that they were facing an intensive labor abuse because of the burdensome works they do for their caretakers, which includes, street selling and domestic enslavement.
At a press conference NACROG said government should extend the juveniles justice system to all parts of Liberia because according to an assessment, there was total of 191 juveniles [children] who were detained at some cells in Monrovia for act mismatched with the laws, something the NACROG outlines as an appalling situation for the state of children in Liberia.
NACROG analyzed that most of these children are usually found along street corners with appalling condition . According to the NACROG, most of these children carry along different sort of illnesses and would sleep in dangerous locations where they would be forced to do peculiar jobs and compelled into criminalities.
The organization reported that in Liberia , all of the provisions in the UNCRC have been violated. The report also accounts that 51% percent of violence is reported for male children while female is rated 49% in the act of the violence against the rights of children.
