Still Tearing…Abducted and used as sex slave(Ezkiel Freeman) Still Tearing …Abducted with other girls during 2003, Misused as Sexual slaves…… Bottled up 11 years……Liberian lady who somehow mustered the courage, agonizes about some of her ordeal.

Ezekiel B. Freeman Consultant @ Supreme Consultant, Rutherford, New Jersey, Former TRC Inquiry Staff & Private Investigator.

The impact of the brutal Liberian civil war (1989-2003) is still being felt in every dimension of the Liberian society and the economic, social, physical and psychological impacts are devastating and alarming.
My continued conversation with a Liberian lady brings me to the realities that because of the stigmatization and the susceptibilities, some of the females who were raped, gang raped, and sexual exploited during the Liberian civil war are still agonizingly suffering in silence. Lives are being lost because of the lack of appropriate interventions. There is a need to HELP the victims recover, heal and be restored to sanctity and stability. The toll of their sufferings and experiences weighs heavily on them and effects Liberia significantly. We are losing smart and resourceful people who should be future leaders of our country, while they are in silence and neglect.

As I have always said and can't mince words again, "The Liberian government and international community have done more for the perpetrators, more than what they have done for the victims, of the Liberian civil war". This shows in the outright downplay of the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Of Liberia (TRC) and the failure to implement them.

For more than 14 years, Liberia experienced a despicably brutal and violent civil war that killed over 200,000 people and displaced more than 1 million across Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas, with the brutal and senseless war from 1989 to 2003. Sexualized violence, as reported by the Truth and reconciliation Commission of Liberia (TRC) and so many other sources, was a noted part of the conflict, as was the use of child soldiers and other social, political and economic exploitations. Young girls and women who were particularly vulnerable to sexual violence and exploitation, were preyed on and were made targets by warring factions and government forces in the bid to win the war. It is true when the international community widely acknowledged over the past twenty years that sexual violence is frequently used as a tool of war; thus, women flee their communities because of sexual and gender-based violence. Before these pronouncements by the United Nations and other international bodies, the facts were berated by the wars in the West African region in superfluous and evidentiary terms.

According to the victim, who still fears stigmatization and prefers only to be mentioned by; QTD, “I experienced sexual slavery, rape, and violence at the hands of a very prominent Liberia United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) general who, along with foot soldiers under his command, abducted and held me for one month, sexually abusing me.
“I and other young girls of my same age were abducted from the Barnesville area during the heat of the fighting between former President Charles Taylor’s Government forces and the LURD rebels. We were held in the house and repeatedly raped. They mistreated us and used us. Sometimes they would sexually abuse us in the presence of the other soldiers and made fun of us”, she lamented.
She said their abduction and subsequent sexual captivity took place when LURD pushed back Taylor’s men and gained control of the area. Unfortunately for her she was alone home, her parents and other siblings left the house early that morning in search for food, and could not return because news had reached them that LURD had captured the area and was killing people.
“I was very afraid and worried about my parents and siblings and was frightened of the loud shootings, stray bullets, bombings and wailings of people who had lost relatives during that morning.” She said that lots of innocent lives were lost that day because dead bodies littered the streets as she and her captors drove in a car.
She refrained from detailing her experience of one month of captivity –living with the LURD general who used her for a sexual slave and other LURD fighters. According to her the LURD general is still in Liberia living prominently and roaming free. When asked if she had ever encountered him since to confront him, she narrated on a recent incident at a clinic in Lakpasee area where she previously worked as nurse. One morning this same rapist and abuser had gone to the clinic for medical help. It was then that she saw him and he immediately recognized her. He was in shock!
“After years of holding it up, bottled, bruised and bashed within, a sight of him at the clinic stirred up anger, rage and bitterness. I took the law into my own hands, I physically assaulted him. He stood there stunned and bewildered and was only rescued from my angry grips by his boys and others who pulled me off him…. I would have plucked out his two eyeballs..... if I'd had gun I would have shot him in the head” she boldly commented.
According to her, she bears the pain, hurt and agony still and she has not mustered much courage and strength to speak in details about her ordeal and other ordeals.

“Over the past years, I have had to grapple with living with the trauma of having been raped by a rebel general and again in another armed robbery incident”. She said she suffers from post-traumatic stress-disorder (PSTD) –so always certain things remind her of the sexual abuses, trigger and force her to mentally relive the gory ordeal. Her eyes were watering as she spoke and I had to stop the interview so many times to allow her to recover. I was crying with her too! It brings to memory so many who might be going through similar situations all around Liberia. I was hurt too! Every Liberian is hurt too! Some part of me was steeped into her experience and I empathize with her and all others' situations, not only in Liberia but every corner of the globe.

And like Martin King Jr., I say "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere". Sometimes I wonder why we celebrate this great man and others' legacy when we do not honor their words and belief that they stood for. It is a shame! It hurts so much to see a beautiful people unfortunately made to go through such horrible situations and with the impacts uncured.

She lamented that in her mind it feels as if she is worthless and useless. ... ”I am anorexic. I drink heavily to block out the trauma. I am an 'alcoholic anorexic', and I use sex as a way to detach. I am promiscuous. I am always detached from my body and manipulated by others with sex. When the last rape occurred, I was just there".
“I see myself being sexually raped, used, misused and abused, and violated over and over again”. I see my abusers face, I see his face, I see their faces as they abused, and sexually violated the other girls who all had become my sisters. I hear the screams and fights. I hear the pleadings", She cried.
“I am sore and sick, don’t do it’ and then the wailing in the corner after the many ruthless violations had stopped. I hear him grunt, I hear them grunt. I see myself in the house on the stench mattress being kicked and punched, and whipped with belts, clothes being torn and being naked because I refused to allow him to sexually violate me.. ……I see myself still vulnerable. Self anguish comes ripping through my entire body"............she cried again.

According to her, sometimes it feels so real that it takes all her being human out of her. "I am suffering, I had suffered and even though I tried hiding my situation while in school, it hurt my grades, it hurt my relationship with my colleagues and teachers, it hurts my relationship with everyone and I almost gave-up in school. I almost give up in life till it came to a point where I contemplated suicide. God however, kept me and I won’t let go, she admitted.

As a former inquiry staff of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) I was exposed to numerous such cases dealing with investigations into massacres and atrocities perpetrated in the brutal Liberian civil war. With all the experience it is still very difficult to sit across the room and not cry. It is heartbreaking.

The Liberian TRC, with the technical help of BENITECH, USA, collected, coded, and analyzed more than 17,000 victim and witness statements containing information on more than 90,000 victims and over 160,000 separate acts of violence. TRC report also found that women and girls suffered in multiple direct and indirect ways during the war. “On account of their sex,” the report indicates, “women and girls experienced incredible acts of violence and torture. On account of their gender, women and girls were subjected to abduction, slavery, and forced labor.” However, perpetrators of the despicable acts against women during and after the war still roam free. There has not been any measure of deterrence and that is why there is a surge in rape cases in post war Liberia.
I witnessed first-hand the devastation and telling destructions of lives and properties caused by the Liberian conflict, as I lived through and experienced all the wars with survival instinct. The TRC provided me with an opportunity to encounter direct victims; both male and female, as well as women and children, normal and people with special needs. I have come to understand their plights, and share their gory and horrible stories, and to some extent their sufferings.

QTD's story only but reignites the need for war crimes prosecution of perpetrators and it calls for the institutionalization of help for rape victims and all those who experienced sexual violations and exploitations. The TRC encountered thousands of victims and compiled listings and also during its operation referred victims for clinical and other medical help. It could not follow through because of the short span of the mandate, but it has however expeditiously and conscientiously scripted a report that includes recommendations for reforms, deinstitutionalization and re-institutionalization to work for the better of all Liberians. The Ellen Johnson Sirleaf government, for selfish reasons, is inconspicuously refusing the implementation thereof.

Whatever political persuasions we may find ourselves defending, it is incumbent upon the government and its international supporters to ensure that women and girls are provided with a safe, supportive environment in which they can heal and become empowered as active agents for peace and reconstruction. It is my hope that QTD's experiences, and the many war victims’ experiences, will contribute to our knowledge and understanding, so that these all-important can be addressed with sustainable programs for both girls and women. We must not allow our beautiful women to continue tearing.

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