LIBERIA: No relief as most Monrovians go without toilets
MONROVIA, 19 November 2008 (IRIN) - With just one in 25 Liberians having access to a toilet, most use the nearest bush or beach, unwittingly committing what the UN Children’s Fund calls “the riskiest sanitation practice”.
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WEST AFRICA: Remittances set to fall in 2009
DAKAR, 11 November 2008 (IRIN) - For the first time in over a decade remittances to sub-Saharan Africa are set to fall in 2009, increasing people’s vulnerability to poverty, officials at the World Bank say. Remittance income in developing countries is expected to decline by about 1 percent from 2008 to 2009.
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WEST AFRICA: Clandestine cannabis farmers feed growing drug abuse
PRAIA, 30 October 2008 (IRIN) - Farmers in West Africa are turning to cannabis as a quick cash crop, feeding the biggest illegal drug market in the world. UN Office on Drugs and Crime’s director for West Africa, Antonio Mazzitelli, told IRIN clandestine farmers are lured by quick earnings: “Faced with the choice of cannabis or cassava, some choose easy money.”
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LIBERIA: Would you fight again?
MONROVIA, 14 October 2008 (IRIN) - Female ex-combatants are twice as likely as men to take up weapons again to escape poverty, based on a recent US-funded survey of more than 1,000 former fighters in Liberia. Almost 30 percent of the people surveyed said they were willing to take up arms again to earn a living wage, family and community acceptance, and respect for their tribe or religion.
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WEST AFRICA: Voices from exile
DAKAR, 13 October 2008 (IRIN) - The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, has appealed to international donors not to cut back on aid to humanitarian programmes amid a global financial crisis that has shuttered financial institutions in rich countries. At the conclusion of UNHCR’s annual meeting in Geneva from 6-10 October, Guterres said refugees remain the most vulnerable victims of the global economic fallout.
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LIBERIA: Mental health problems breed violence
MONROVIA, 13 October 2008 (IRIN) - Liberia’s only mental health specialist says the country is experiencing an increase in post-traumatic stress disorders because the country’s two disarmament processes during 14 years of conflict did not address the psychosocial needs of ex-combatants, especially that of youths.
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LIBERIA: Edward Teah, “I try to control my temper.”
MONROVIA, 30 September 2008 (IRIN) - Edward K. Teah was 22-years-old when he joined rebel group, Movement for Democracy in Liberia, rising to the rank of general during Liberia’s 14-year civil war. Teah now works with the National Commission for Disarmament, Demobilization, Rehabilitation and Reintegration, helping to identify ex-combatants for rehabilitation and reintegration.
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LIBERIA: Growing mental health needs, but only one doctor
MONROVIA, 30 September 2008 (IRIN) - Only five years out of a brutal 14-year-civil war that killed an estimated 150,000, according to the UN, and displaced and wounded tens of thousands more, Liberia only has one mental health specialist to treat trauma and depression. Health officials are preparing to meet on 2 October to find a way to treat the country’s growing mental health needs, despite the lack of trained doctors.
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LIBERIA: FGM continues in rural secrecy
MONROVIA, 24 September 2008 (IRIN) - Thousands of young girls annually prepare for their initiation into a women’s secret association, Sande Society, which operates mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. As part of their initiation, young women take a vow of secrecy after weeks of training in the forest, promising not to not tell uninitiated girls or men what happens to them, to assume new names, and to have their clitorises cut off - known as female genital mutilation (FGM) - according to women in the secret society.
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WEST AFRICA: Mixed report card in 2008 corruption index
DAKAR, 23 September 2008 (IRIN) - Nine West African countries shot up while nine others sank lower in the 2008 Transparency International (TI) ranking of perceptions of corruption in 180 countries.
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