*Photo by Ruthie Ackerman

Titus read this article by New York Times journalist Nicholas D. Kristof on the pervasiveness of rape in Liberia even after the war has been over for almost six years and wanted to share it with you here. Kristof has a giant megaphone with which to highlight issues such as sexual violence that NGO’s, civil society and organizations like Amnesty International are trying to tackle.

“But the lesson of Liberia is equally sad: that even when wars end, mass rape continues by inertia. In Liberia, sexual predation during the civil war was “normal.” One major survey found that 75 percent of women had been raped — mostly gang-raped, with many suffering internal injuries. The incidence of rape has dropped since then but is still numbingly high. An International Rescue Committee survey in 2007 found that about 12 percent of girls aged 17 and under acknowledged having been sexually abused in some way in the previous 18 months. Then there is the age of the victims. Of the 275 new sexual violence cases treated between January and April by Doctors Without Borders in Liberia, 28 percent involve children aged 4 or younger, and 33 percent involve children aged 5 through 12.”

Read more here.