Monrovia – The newly inducted chairman of the Board of Commissioners of the Independent National Commission on Human Rights (INCHR) has alarmed over the increase in the wave of gender-based violence, rape, and sexual harassment across Liberia and expressed the need that swift action is taken to stop the menace.
Speaking when members of the INCHR Board Members official took office in Sinkor, Cllr. Dempster Brown stressed that the wave of human rights violations is becoming rampant in workplaces and schools, among others, while mysterious deaths and the disappearances of people are gradually becoming a norm at various places.
Cllr. Dempster Brown said: “The issue of mysterious death and disappearances of citizens is becoming a norm in the country with state security doing little to get findings.”
Cllr. Brown expressed the need for parents to provide funding to the commission for the training of monitors to conduct transparent investigations into said matters.
He further noted that the INCHR Monitor has revealed that human rights violation is rampant across Liberia due to the lack of rule of law by citizens.
Cllr. Brown also noted that it is cardinal to engage the National Legislature to pass an act that will abolish the death penalty, adding that the commission will not be deterred in investigating human rights violations, in line with its statutory mandate.
The INCHR New Board Chair further wants all complaints on human rights violations to be submitted to the office of the Commission’s Chairman for due process while warning that violators culpable and who will refuse to adhere to policies of the Commission will be compelled to appear through a writ of arrest, based on the INCHR order.
Cllr. Brown has announced the Commission’s readiness to ensure that the rights of Liberians and foreign nationals are protected, especially women, children and the disabled.
Also making remarks at the occasion, the Head of Delegation of the European Union to Liberia Ambassador Laurent Delahousse, emphasized the European Union’s determination to promote peace and stability and to build a world founded on respect for human rights, democracy and the rule of law.
“Human rights are universally applicable legal norms. Democracy is a universal aspiration,” Ambassador Delahousse said.
“The EU has been on the side of Liberia for many years now supporting the respect of human right in all our fields of cooperation.
Through the Spotlight Initiative program, we have committed even further in this quest of promoting gender equality and preventing sexual and gender-based violence and harmful practices such as female genital mutilation and child marriage.”
Delahousse further noted that that the issues of female genital mutilation, abolishing death penalty and criminalization of consensual sexual conduct by same sex couples still remain a challenging issue that need further steps.
He called on government to take immediate action to issue an Executive Order banning Female Genital Mutilation, while working with the Legislature to deliver a law and permanent ban of FGM, and working with communities to change these practices, saying every lost day is a maimed womanhood for too many little girls in Liberia.
Furthermore, he noted that Liberia has abolished death penalty in practice, with the last execution back in 2000, but with still 14 people sentenced, stressing that Sierra Leone recently abolished the death penalty, being the 23rd country in Africa to prohibit capital punishment.
He said: “We call on Liberia to be the 24th. Third issue, the criminalization of consensual sexual conduct by same-sex couples.”
Amb. Delahousse said the Penal Code of Liberia continues to criminalize adult, consensual sexual conduct by same-sex couples in violation of Articles 2(1), 17, 23and 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The existence of such, according to him, deprives LGBT individuals of the equal protection of the law and wants government address same.