Monrovia – In 2003, the women of Liberia showed the world what women can do when they engage their collective will to shape the future for the better.
Through organised action, collective resolve and dedication, Liberian women played a critical role in bargaining for an end to a long civil war that had ravaged the country and devastated the lives of millions.
The women of Liberia rose up and said, “ENOUGH!” The power in this was the refusal to remain victims or spectators and to become active organisers of peace.
We were inspired once again when you made history by electing Africa’s first female president and increasing the participation of women in governance.
Across the region, we continue to learn from you.
While there still remains significant progress to be made, which is not unique to Liberia, we recognise your government’s commitment to strengthening gender-based violence laws, gender-responsive policies, and greater opportunities for women and girls is one that is setting the tone for the region.
However, progress like this anywhere will face its own fair share of contestation by those who think a woman’s place is to be out of sight.
This is why we are writing to you, our siblings in the struggle.
We are experiencing an unfortunate rise in the activities of groups that are antagonistic to our progress and opposed to basic human rights.
This threat that is spreading across our region is systematically targeting legislations intended to improve access to reproductive healthcare and strengthen protection for all.
It is also occurring simultaneously with the rise of a foreign-sponsored, anti-rights movement, operating across Africa under the banner of the “Strengthening Families Conference,” a movement that promotes the language of “family values” and “culture” as a means to oppose women’s rights, reproductive health protections, gender equality, and broader social progress.
The conference has already been hosted in several African countries, including Sierra Leone. Liberia is set to become the next this June.
We call on the people of Liberia to reject this conference and the harmful political agenda it seeks to advance.
We make this call because we have witnessed this conference ourselves. We have seen it spread fear across our communities.
We have experienced its attempts to restrict our rights.
We therefore urge Liberians not to be misled by its narratives about family values and progress. In reality, it frames women’s rights, reproductive health, bodily autonomy, and protection from violence as foreign ideas.
The protection of women from violence, the reduction of maternal deaths, the protection of children from harm, and the preservation of human dignity are not foreign values.
They are deeply rooted in our African traditions of care, solidarity, and communal responsibility and justice.
Our dear siblings, we encourage you to remember that you did not come this far just so that years later your rights, bodily autonomy and safety could be bargained away.
You did not come this far to welcome or normalise agendas that seek to shrink women back into silence, submission or harm.
In Solidarity,
The Feminist Outer Caucus
Sierra Leone
