Upcoming Article in the Spring Issue: Liberia’s “New War”: Post-Conflict Strategies for Confronting Rape and Sexual Violence

Arizona State Law Journal is previewing its upcoming articles in the spring publication.  This article is written by third-year student, Sara Cummings.

In the summer of 2009, a crime of sexual violence took place in Phoenix that sent shock waves into the local community. Tragically enough, the victim was an eight year old girl, but the assailants who raped her were also alarmingly young: four boys ranging in age from nine to fourteen. The crime raised implications far beyond Phoenix. Both the victim and her attackers were refugees from Liberia, a country with a troubled history marked by violent atrocities, including fourteen years of recent civil war in which rape and sexual violence were used by factions on all sides as tools for terror and control.

Whatever may have motivated the crime in Phoenix, news of it brought international attention to a problem that persists in post-conflict Liberia. While Liberia’s civil war ended in 2005, rape and sexual violence continue to persist at epidemic levels, primarily endangering very young girls. In my Comment, Liberia’s “New War”: Post-Conflict Strategies for Confronting Rape and Sexual Violence, I chose to investigate this ongoing issue. I look at what Liberia’s post-war government, under the leadership of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, together with the help of the international legal community, has done to promote the rule of law in Liberia. I also explore what more must be done to bring about lasting change in Liberia, particularly in this critical and sensitive area.

While I chose to focus on Liberia, my Comment has broad relevance to the question of how to confront a high incidence of rape and sexual violence in any post-conflict country. Most articles dealing with post-conflict countries focus on how best to confront war crimes and other atrocities committed during the time of conflict, itself, largely proposing and discussing the relative advantages and disadvantages of war crimes tribunals and truth and reconciliation commissions. I make reference to this debate, and I discuss in some detail the nature and consequences of Liberia’s years of violent conflict. My primary focus, however, is on how to promote the rule of law going forward, especially when the criminal justice system requires major rebuilding, and when years of conflict involving widespread sexual violence has fostered a culture where such crimes are widely perpetrated and tolerated in day-to-day life. I argue that in addition to taking steps to extend the reach and effectiveness of its criminal justice system, Liberia must incorporate strategic community-based, restorative justice programs in order to effectuate widespread and culturally integrated responses to sexual violence.

Liberia makes for a particularly relevant case-study of this issue for a number of reasons. First of all, with assistance from the United Nations, Liberia’s post-conflict transitional legislature passed a new law against rape in 2005. Liberia is also the first African country to elect a female head-of-state, and, as part of her inaugural address, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf pledged to make enforcement of this law a national priority. Still, Liberia has failed to make much progress in this area, and rape and sexual violence remain at epidemic levels, indicating that much work still needs to be done.

After establishing the historical background, including the violence of war, informing Liberia’s current political and cultural context, I discuss basic rule of law reforms, including improvements to law enforcement, health-care, and the judicial system, required to enable Liberia to confront rape and sexual violence as a criminal issue. My Comment’s most unique contribution, however, is its recognition that well-integrated, community-based justice programs must also play a role if Liberia is to confront rape and sexual violence on the local level. I draw upon restorative justice literature, as well as models practiced in South Africa, Ireland, and India, to propose ways that Liberia can tailor community-based, restorative justice programs to supplement its response to rape and sexual violence within the traditional justice system. I think my Comment is important because it recognizes the on-the-ground realities of confronting a serious criminal law/international law issue that is especially common in post-conflict settings, and it goes beyond discussing and evaluating the methods of reconstruction traditionally imposed by the international law community to proposing culturally-integrated restorative justice approaches that I believe are equally crucial to confronting these crimes.