Monrovia – Lea, 16, (not her real name), recalls how her own biological father, Darcy Ben, who is in his 60s, has molested and raped her more than once. She now wants the law to punish her father.
Report by Massa Kanneh, Contributor
Speaking in an exclusive phone interview with FrontPageAfrica, Lea narrated that the burden of living with the feeling that her father “can have sex with me has become unbearable to keep”.
“I want the law to punish him,” she said. “He had sex with me two times and threatened me that he would kill me if I told anyone.”
She narrated that it all started on a Thursday in 2019, when her stepmother decided to spend the night at church for a fast and prayer service. Lea and her siblings were left all alone. Her stepmother requested she managed the shop.
As the night got darker, Lea locked the shop and begin watching movie with her sibling.
“My father came from work, he went to the bathroom and took bath came in the room, locked the door, came on the bed,” she recalled.
“He said to me, ‘you can watch movies and see other children kissing their fathers and mothers’. Then I asked but daddy what are you talking about? That was how, he held my two hands, pushed me to the bed and had sex with me. I bled that night, I was crying. He threatened me if I told anyone he will kill me.”
When her stepmother returned the next morning, Lea was still sad but was afraid to speak out. When her stepmother told her father that Lea had been sad all day, he again threatened her that if she told anyone, he would kill her.
“The first time it happened, he kept asking for me every time he came home and reminded me or asked me if I told anyone, he will say, ‘I hope you did not tell anyone’,” Lea explained.
The second incident occurred April this year, when her father used a knife to scare her in her room.
“He said to me, ‘you can watch movies and see other children kissing their fathers and mothers’. Then I asked but daddy what are you talking about? That was how, he held my two hands, pushed me to the bed and had sex with me. I bled that night, I was crying. He threatened me if I told anyone he will kill me.”
– Rape Survivor
“I was sleeping in my bed, he came to my room, started robbing my thigh and chest, and ‘when I asked him Papa what you doing?’, he pulled the knife out from his side and showed it to me, saying he would stab me if I shout or tell anyone. He had sex with me again that day. I could not bear it anymore.” she said.
“Sometimes, he would call me to meet him in Red Light because he never wanted someone see what we can be doing. I never used to go there.
“One time, he called me and I told him, anytime he called me again, I will call the Police, that’s how he stopped calling me to meet him places for him to have sex with me.
“The second time it happened, I told my stepmother, but she said I wanted to be in the streets that was why I’m lying on her husband; she didn’t do anything. She only told her husband that I have told lot of people that he had sex with me.”
When Lea first hinted her biological mother about the situation, they were both afraid to confront him because of the threats he had made.
And so, Lea decided to inform her aunty who then reported the situation to the police.
“And then I went to my aunt, told her everything and my aunt told me, he has been doing the same to other children that made them to leave, that it wasn’t his first time,” she said.
Her father was then arrested by the police. He is now undergoing investigation at the Zone 9 Police depot in Jacob Town, Paynesville. He has not been officially charged and sent to court, but the alleged crime committed is rape and incest as defined in the Penal Law of Liberia.
Now, Lea is asking for the law to take its course. “Let them punish him. I don’t want to be doing it with him, because he will damage my future,” she said.
