Rape as a Weapon of War in Liberia

The piece below was written by Lizzie Goodfriend, who works for an NGO in Liberia, as part of this week's theme looking at rape as a weapon of war.

Lizzie writes about working with Liberian rape survivors.

Lucy looks and acts like a crazy person. All of her front teeth are missing, and her lively, goofy personality is just a little too manic to feel natural. The facilitators of a workshop I recently took part in called her 'traumatized.' In 1990, rebel soldiers butchered (and I mean that literally) Lucy's husband while she was forced to watch. The group of seven men then took turns raping her for five hours. They beat her face with the butt of their rifles, smashing out eight teeth in the process, and then they left her for dead. Lucy has not had sexual intercourse in 19 years. Her uterus now hangs too low for sex to be anything other than painful, and besides that, she doesn't want a man to touch her ever again.
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When Victoria encountered a group of five rebels in 1994 she was alone, and they gave her a choice. Let them beat her or let them rape her. She chose rape. They raped her and then they beat her anyway. Victoria has been partially blind in one eye ever since and still walks with a limp.
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Elena spent several weeks as a conscripted porter for a rebel group in 2003. Not only was she forced into labor, she was also forced into sex. When Elena escaped, her boyfriend at the time turned her away. He said: "Why would I want you now when that thing I wanted from you those men spoiled?" Elena found another man with whom she now shares a one-year-old son. After she gave birth her ex-boyfriend said to her, "once that boy is walking, come to me and we will sit together." She did. Once he found out that, as a result of her rape, Elena 'menstruates' 2-3 times/month and requires regular clinic visits because of severe abdominal pain, he sent her away again.
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These are some of the stories, and only small parts of them at that, of the women of Liberia's Bong, Lofa, and Nimba counties. These are not even the worst ones—those involve forced killing, forced cannibalism, forced acts of ritualism and carnage, and I cannot quite find the words in me to share those horrors with the delicacy, depravity, and dignity that they warrant.

Collectively, these are the stories Liberian women shared with me and with each other at a three-day consultation International Center for Transitional Justice has been helping to organize and support with a local partner organization, the Women's NGO Secretariat of Liberia (Wongosol). These are the stories of Liberia's civil war. These are the stories that break my heart. And yet, as I continue listening, when the tales get past the then and move on into the now, my heart becomes somewhat restored--stronger now, perhaps, for the scar tissue. These stories are tragic, but they are also inspirational.

Martha's youngest son of five, now aged 15, dreams of going to college. Martha has not yet told her son that he is not her son, that he is one of five orphaned children that she collected, some sitting besides the still-warm bodies of their dead parents, in her flight from Liberia to Cote D'Ivoire in 1994. Martha's birth children, two twin babies who she never got a chance to name, were eaten by ants when she left them on the forest floor--where she'd gone to give birth when rebels attacked her village in the middle of her labor--while she went to see if she could find help. Now that her other adopted children are out of the house and into households of their own, through her small-scale cassava farm, Martha has already saved enough money to pay for her son's first two semesters.

Viola will graduate from high school this year--despite being abducted at the age of three by a warring faction; despite not remembering her mother's name nor knowing how to get in touch with her family; and despite all the unspeakable things Viola was raised to do in ritualistic 'bush ceremonies'. Viola thinks she is 22, and her three-year-old daughter, Princess, already knows how to write the alphabet. She showed me while sitting on my lap during one of the sessions.

Frances plans to run for the position of Paramount Chief. She lost her husband, three children, mother, father, sister, and two brothers as a result of the war. With no family and no income she was destitute and 'crazed' until she became a community organizer, setting up a local community development association. Her community now has a rice field and a rock quarry. She thinks she will win the elections.

If these women prove anything, it is that humans are incomprehensibly resilient. "I have not lived your lives," I told them at the closing. "I have not suffered what you have suffered…But we are all connected, not so?" They agreed. "Your pain," I continued, "I feel it. And I also feel your strength."

[Read part two here, and part three here.]

[Photo from Merlin / www.herwigphoto.com]