legislations of the State Part especially in terms of minimum age of marriage, sexual
consent, adoption, and juvenile justice. The Committee urges the state to fill this gap by
promoting the legislations and making them easy and understandable to the society.
Further the State Party may take appropriate measures against customary laws
inconsistent with legislations.
The Committee welcomes the adoption of Children’s Law for a better protection of child
rights. However the Committee has concerns regarding the implementation of the Law
due to the fact that the structure devised by the Law is not compatible with the available
human resource available for social welfare in the country. The Committee recommends
that Liberia adopt a coherent policy framework to meet the welfare needs of children.
The Committee appreciates formation of the Children’s Protection Division and the
Women and Children Protection Sections; however it notes lack of financial and human
resource in these units. The division is not capable to finance its own initiatives and the
Women and Children Protection Sections are not accessible by majority of the
population. The Committee recommends to the State Party to increase the budget
allocated for both units to ensure their functionality. The Committee also recommends
that the Women and Children Protection Sections need to be reachable by all
communities including rural areas.
The Committee notes that there is only one Juvenile Court in Liberia. Most juvenile
crimes are handled by Magisterial Courts which are not attended by lawyers or child
rights professionals. In addition, the Committee is concerned that there is only one court
specialized to handle rape cases. It is for this reason that the Committee hereby urges
the government of Liberia to establish more Juvenile Courts and courts specialized for
rape cases.
While appreciating the existence of the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) in Liberia, the
Committee regrets that the state party has not invested in it and that most of its work is
funded by NGOs. There is no budget allocated for the operation of the CWC. The
committee recommends that the State Party may allocate sufficient budget to the CWC
and look sustainable budget from other resources.
The Committee is concerned that the State Party is not able to provide updated data on
child right issues due to lack of systemic data collection mechanisms. This hinders
accessing information from the government. The Committee recommends to the state
party to devise an efficient data collection mechanism.
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