Monrovia – There has never been a shortage of gifts for Liberia. In fact, at the end of its mission, the United Nations Mission, presented a DNA analysis machine to the Ministry of Gender, Children, and Social Protection. The only problem is, it has never been used.
Report by Alline Dunbar, [email protected]
Over the past few years, a lot of myths and stories have been floating around as to why an entire country does not have a fitting DNA dialysis machine to aid the prosecution of rape cases.
Some reports have said that the Gender Ministry upon receiving the machine turned it over to the JFK Medical Center. However, FrontPageAfrica has learned that no one has been trained to operate the machine which was intended to be used to analyze forensic evidence of rape and aid in the prosecution of cases.
Since the end of the civil war, Liberia has had little capacity to do DNA analysis. In most cases, DNA samples have been collected and taken to neighboring Ghana for testing.
The gift from UNMIL should have changed all that but it apparently hasn’t’.
On Monday, a member of the Joint Task Force on Sexual Gender Based Violence in the country came up with an official answer as he announced that the only DNA machine in the country has not being used or effective because it is faulty and needs experts to operate.
John A.A. Gabriels explained during a Joint news conference held at the Ministry of Gender on Capitol By-pass in observance of the Day of the African Child, that when the machine was presented by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to the government of Liberia about a year ago, there were no pathologists in the country.
Gabriels explained that the government had sent three individuals for studies out of the country to learn how to operate the machine. “The machine was given to the government and it needed experts who could work with it but Liberia did not have any Pathologist. The government sent three people out of the country and only two were successful.”
Mr. Gabriels added that even though Liberia has two pathologist to run autopsy, they have not been able to use the machine because it has a Problem “As I speak to you now, we have two persons who are very trained to carry on an autopsy but the machine has a problem. According to the UNFPA, the machine has some problem with the cartridge and some other things.”
Despite the explanation, many are unsure why after more than a year, the machine remains inoperable. Meanwhile, the number of rape cases continue to rise.
A total of 803 cases were recorded in the first quarter of 2019. 513 or 64%of these cases were rape which include sodomy; while Physical assault/Domestic violence constitute 122 or 15%.
In addition to the lack of an operable DNA machine, hospitals like the main JFK are also lacking rape kits.
Liberia, the first independent African state, went through two civil wars in the 14 years between 1989 and 2003. The conflicts killed more than 250,000 people, mainly civilians, and led to a break down in the rule of law. In addition to the civil conflict, the Ebola crisis of 2014 severely tested the country’s still weak government institutions. Ebola killed more than 4,000 in the country.