Thinker’s Beach - Ann Jones in Liberia
Posted by Ann Jones on January 7th, 2008
 Beautiful beaches within sight of Monrovia seem a world away from the wreckage of war. Photo: Ann Jones |
| The International Rescue Committee is working with women’s advocate Ann Jones to help women in war zones — survivors of conflict, displacement and sexual and domestic violence — use photography to make their voices heard. Ann is blogging the year-long project from West Africa. If you’re just joining us, you can read her first series of posts from Cote d’Ivoire at theIRC.org/16days.
The story continues in Liberia, where Ann is posting updates and new photos on Mondays and Thursdays. After spending six weeks in Cote d’Ivoire, I’ve moved next door to Liberia, the second stop on our year-long agenda. When my flight from Abidjan landed in Monrovia, I was still high on the changes bold Ivoirian women had made in so short a time. The Cote d’Ivoire story was a tale of transformation. That sounds pretentious, but it’s true. The drive from the airport to central Monrovia brought me down to earth: wretched roads, paltry markets, ruined houses, blackened shells of government buildings occupied by long-term squatters, and the sprawling home of former big man Charles Taylor bearing a message inscribed in Christmas lights, now extinguished: “Season’s Greetings.” When an IRC colleague invited me, I escaped to the beach. It was splendid and wild. The pale sand. The pale sky. The sea the color of silver foil, crashing over a bar not far offshore. I stepped in to the water just as a wave rolled back, sucking sand from beneath my feet. The rip caught me and hauled me far down the shore before I found my footing again. So much for swimming. I told my colleague I’d take a nice long walk on the beach. “Please, not,” she said. She had warned me about the treacherous surf, and now the sand: “Some women have been raped. Men have guns. Friends can do nothing.”  A small street market serves squatters—mostly former soldiers—who live in the ruins of the massive building President Charles Taylor built to house the Ministry of Defense. Photo: Ann Jones I met a young Brit at the water’s edge. Like me he was too wary to plunge. He said he was repairing sabotaged navigational equipment at the international airport. He said, “We haven’t finished, but you can land now.” “I landed last week,” I said. “Right,” he said. “You should have come by sea.” We watched the breaking waves for a long while. And then he said, “It makes you think, doesn’t it?” That was the name of the beach: Thinker’s Beach. What I thought was: If everything is so threatening to me, here on this magnificent shore, what is life like for Liberians? For a very long time the country was washed by waves of war. Some Liberians speak of “the war,” referring to fourteen years of intermittent conflict between 1989 and 2003. Others speak of the first world war, the second world war, and the third. (Any war must feel like a “world” war when you’re caught in the middle of it.) The first war is called after Samuel Doe whose bloody coup in 1980 set the stage. The second is Prince Johnson’s. The third is Charles Taylor’s. Three wars—or one—it’s more than enough. By the time the fighting ended in 2003, 1.4 million Liberians had been displaced within the country. Almost a million others had fled. In a country of 3 million people, that’s one in three citizens gone. At least 270,000 people died. Some sources say 300,000. That’s 10 percent of the population.  These children live in the wreckage of the Liberian Broadcasting System building—without water, without toilets or latrines, without electricity—and after five years or more, without much hope. Children of war, they have never known another life. Photo: Ann Jones. As always in war, women were easy targets. Lofa County, in the north, lay in the path of Charles Taylor’s militia and LURD forces that opposed him. Both sides used rape and murder as weapons of war. A World Health Organization study in 2005 estimated that 90 percent of Liberian women suffered physical or sexual violence; three out of four were raped. A study by the IRC and Columbia University’s School of Public Health (October 2007) reported: “While the war officially ended in 2003, the war on women continued.” Well over half the women interviewed in two counties (including the capital city) had survived at least one violent physical attack during an eighteen month period in 2006-2007, years after the official end of conflict. Well over half the women reported at least one violent sexual assault in the same period. Seventy-two percent said their husbands had forced them to have sex against their will. An earlier IRC study (2003) among Liberian refugees in Sierra Leone found that 75 percent of women had been sexually violated before they fled Liberia; and after, 55 percent were sexually assaulted again. For women, war is not over when it’s over. Recently the CDC and UNFPA surveyed surviving Lofa County women. More than 98 percent said that during Charles Taylor’s war (1999-2003) they lost their homes. More than 90 percent lost their livelihoods. More than 72 percent lost at least one family member. Nearly 90 percent of them survived at least one violent physical assault. More than half of them survived at least one violent sexual assault. At least. That makes you think too. |
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January 7th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
It’s excruciating to see what’s happened and what continues. The strength required to survive during such horrific circumstance is inspiring and humbling. When one reads the accounts it takes us there and does deepen awareness…but what to do with it? What can we do to stop the violence from so far away? What are we to do beyond feel about the powerful messages you’re sharing? I’ve seen too many tragedies feed someone’s art form. It’s a vacuum. I’m not saying your photos fit into that….it just leaves me with a what next?
January 7th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
I grieve for all the people of Liberia and now Kenya. It’s impossible for me to imagine what it’s like to live with war for all those years. Thank you again for your work. It’s vital that we in the U.S. know what is happening in these troubled places.
January 7th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Hi Ann,
I’m 22-years-old and recently returned from Liberia, where I spent the Christmas holiday. I volunteered with the MacDella Cooper Foundation, which supports orphans and abandoned children in Liberia. We had a huge Christmas party for 4 orphanages. I blogged about it on http://newyorktoliberia.wordpress.com. I admire your writing style and I completely relate to what you’re conveying — I feel like you’re putting into words what was indescrible to me. I will be reading each blog update eagerly.
~Tammy
January 7th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
I so appreciate your reporting on your one-year tour. I wasn’t aware of how the violence and rape-violence against women went on and on after wars “officially” ended. The lives of these women must be so fearful and miserable. Women are the emotion-keepers of the human species. Women are tender and soft. They carry and raise the children - both girls and boys. How is it that the men in these conflicts can live with terrorizing, assaulting and raping the very women that are their mothers, sisters, daughters, wives and friends… the very women that raised them? How large a deficit must these men have in their souls to destroy the most important fabric of their societies. I’m strongly in favor of an international consortium on this severe problem with resolutions to put into place policing and judicial structures to take these men out of the general population, and I believe this must be a system that is set in place for good.
January 8th, 2008 at 3:50 am
Its horrible to know the condition and the situation over there. Even we, in the developing countries, are scared for price hike and other related things but unfortunately if we think of the situations like in Liberia, we must feel to be in heaven while only fighting for material things.
I think, it is and will always be order of the day to help and eradicate such crimes against human beings. Its need to help the humanity and protect it.
Can’t say any thing else but just ” do some thing” because if its not now then it won’t be ever.
Regards,
Muhammad Shoaib
January 8th, 2008 at 9:39 am
This is so sad. I admire the strength that many of these women seem to find to keep moving on however, I feel they have no choice but to move on. As a rape survivor myself I can only imagine what it must be like for these women who are abused several times or constantly by their husbands. I survived and through counseling got back my livelihood. These women do not have any resources and have lost their livelihood. They don’t live - they just exist and this is just awful! I will continue to support your cause in any way I can and will forward on your blogs to everyone I can think of.
Thank you for all the hard work you are doing to help these women and children and for helping to spread the word and this awareness out to people around the world.
May we one day find a way to live in peace and harmony.
January 8th, 2008 at 10:39 am
I just hope it works out as well as it did in Cote d’Ivoire
January 8th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
I was away over the holidays and not able to keep up with your project. I am glad you are continuing in Liberia. It appears there might be even more need there then in the Ivory Coast. Thank you for this first installment from Liberia. My wife and I here in St. Louis, MO have been working with a Liberian man and his two sons. They came here fleeing the three wars you chronicle in your artilce and after spending many years in Sierre Leone in refugee camps. Blessings on your work with the women in Liberia…keep planting the seeds of transformation…and giving hope!
Peace, Tom
January 8th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
what can we do ? This is my question.
January 8th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Well, we could donate to IRC and raise awareness of this project. Or help out at women’s shelters in our own neighborhoods.
Also we can support the work of IRC through the search engine http://www.goodsearch.com for free.
Looking forward to Ann’s latest post!
Any way people can serve as pen pals or provide written encouragement to those in the Ivory Coast or Liberia or anywhere else seeking to create change within their countries? Just human-to-human, rather than sponsored by a government or group.
January 11th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
its sad inhumany and ungodly to what happened in liberia and I feel it what is happening in my country Kenya .personaly I am a witnes of the war its realy bad.
thank God for IRC and the servant heart they have please continue transforming humany lives for your loves is the basis of judgement.
can you link to the Kenya i would like to volunteer
sammy Kenya
January 14th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
The figures you cite are tragic. I would like to read more about these studies. Could you please provide the references for the IRC/Columbia study (2007) as well as the WHO study (2005)?
Thank you
January 17th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Laura — thanks for your question about the two studies. Ann is in the field, so I referred it to an IRC colleague in the GBV program at our New York headquarters. She said that the Columbia/IRC report on GBV in Liberia will be published soon. As for the WHO, the assessment is here but you can look on the WHO Web site as well.
January 17th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Sammy - thanks for your interest in volunteering. The IRC Web site contains information about volunteer opportunities: http://www.theIRC.org/volunteer
January 17th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Thank you, everyone, for your comments and interest in ways to help! The best way to get involved right now is to visit the IRC’s Web site and join our action campaign to end violence against women: in the US, in Europe.
January 19th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Dear Ann
I really appreciate your effort and determination to keep going. It’s very encouraging to see your commitment towards ending violence and empower women of conflict zones. Keep going, you will surely reap the harvest you are sowing now. let peace prevail even in conflict zones.
January 19th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
I was the consultant who conducted the survey among Liberian refugees in Sierra Leone. I have some excerpts from the report if you’re interested.
February 20th, 2008 at 8:34 am
I’m a London based documentary maker researching a documentary about the relationship between UN peace-keepers and local women. Obviously this is a big and complex question, with overlap with some of the issues Ann is highlighting.
I’m really impressed with the work Ann is doing with Liberian women, (especially the self-documenting) and the importance of getting these stories heard. In the course of my reserach I am seeking to get in touch with Liberian women and/or local women’s groups. I’m especially interesting in hearing stories that are related to their contact with the peace-keepers.
congrratulations Ann on your work. If you or anyone else at IRC or elsewhere has any leads, stories or contacts for me I would really appreciate you getting in touch and sharing these with me. I’m also happy to talk more about my film-work and this project.
Many thanks,
Maxx Ginnane
November 5th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Do not marry with foolishness. There may be children.