Under-Reporting of Sexual Abuse Against Men; An Assessment of Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Abstract

The Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which was signed in 2003. The aim of the Commission was to “provide a forum that will address issues of impunity, as well as the opportunity for both victims and perpetrators of human rights violations to share their experiences in order to get a clear picture of the past to facilitate genuine healing and reconciliation”. Howbeit, the Commission’s definitive frameworks sidelined male victims and thereby, falling short of the effective realization of this aim. This paper submits that the female skewed statement-taking mechanisms adopted by the commission, women agenda’s institutional access to the state and societal constructions of masculinity and femininity can be identified as causes of this problem. It concludes that the work of the Commission cannot be described as successfully efficient if issues of sexual abuse against men were not examined as much as against women.