Filed in by Olando Testimony Zeongar – 0776819983/0880-361116/life2short4some@yahoo.com
Monrovia – Days following the release of a horrific sexual abuse report on how dozens of young Liberian girls were sexually exploited at an American-run Non governmental organization, the More Than Me (MTM), Liberia’s first female vice president Jewel Howard-Taylor has condemned the act, and is seeking that due diligence is carried out in the case of the sex scandal, in which it is reported that girls as young as 10 years-old were raped.
Recently, the US media non-profit ProPublica, released an investigative report unveiling widespread sexual abuse at MTM, which operates 19 schools in the country.
According to ProPublica, the head of MTM, Katie Meyler and the board of MTM exerted great effort in a bid to cover up the sex scandal, with the media group indicating that the NGO and some unnamed officials of the Government of Liberia tried to influence the trial of the accused rapist.
More Than Me was founded in 2009 by Katie Meyler to help rid the streets of girls and send them to school, but the girls were raped from the onset, according to the ProPublica investigation, which was conducted within a period of a year in collaboration with Time Magazine.
The rapist, the investigation further reveals, is a man described as MTM’s co-founder, an ex-combatant named Macintosh Johnson, with whom Meyler, a US citizen, was allegedly having a sexual relationship.
Soon after More Than Me was founded, Johnson, an HIV carrier then, who later died of AIDS, began raping girls as young as 10, according to witnesses and court documents revealed in the report, which points to Meyler admitting at one point, saying that the number of girls who were raped at the MTM-run school could have been a quarter of the school, “everyone over the age of 11.”
ProPublica reports that some of the girls became pregnant and Johnson threatened that if they didn’t get rid of the pregnancy or if they told anyone of the abuse, he would take them off scholarship at the More Than Me academy, even at some point issuing death threat against the girls.
Prior to his demise, when Johnson was taken to court to answer to his sexual abuse crime, several of his victims who testified against him tested positive for HIV with the ProPublica investigation establishing that the baby of one of the infected girls died of an illness that could have been AIDS.
ProPublica says More Than Me did not test the rest of the girls in the school. Meyler and MTM President Saul Garlick said it wasn’t the charity’s job to check Johnson’s medical record. “Let me be super clear,” said Garlick. “It’s not my business what he died of. I have no idea.”
But, following the publication of the ProPublica report, More Than Me has somersaulted, becoming somewhat remorseful, even posting on it website a marathon statement of apology.
“We are deeply sorry: When we started this work, we believed that our energy and passion for improving girls’ lives was enough to create lasting change. We were ambitious but also naïve,” the statement issued on last Friday said..
More than Me added: “We are deeply saddened and regret that we were underprepared for the magnitude of the challenges we would face when we opened More Than Me Academy in 2013. We want to apologize to the brave girls who came forward, as well as those who potentially may not have, for the pain they have experienced from Johnson’s heinous actions. We stand by the girls and young women affected and we are here for them. We continue to support them with scholarships to school, healthcare, counseling, and monthly stipends to pursue their dreams.”
Howbeit, in a statement released late last Friday by the Office of the Vice President of Liberia, VP Howard-Taylor categorically denounces the sexual abuse of the young Liberian girls, and frowns on earlier move by More Than Me to cover up Johnson’s crime against his victims, stating that she will never condone such acts.
“I vehemently denounce this act of exploiting our young girls and putting an organization’s interest before our children. I will never condone these acts from anyone be it foreign or domestic. Please allow us to do due diligence.”
Veep Howard-Taylor lamented that “The horrible issues of sexual and gender exploitation portrayed in the Propublica documentary, is a horrific reminder of what continues to happen to the most vulnerable in our society, our young girls.”
She insists that the first and foremost things to be done, are that appropriate attention be given the victims, saying, “Medical and psychological support must be rendered to them and their families.”
“Secondly, my office will engage all parties involved to ensure that the current children under the care of the institution are safe and protected,” VP Howard-Taylor said.
“To my daughters, the girls of Liberia, we love you and will do our best to protect all of you in the length and breadth of this great nation. You are our priority,” said Howard-Taylor, Liberia’s former First Lady, whose ex-husband former president Charles Taylor’s rebel group the erstwhile National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) started a rebel war, in which countless number of sexual and gender-based abuses, including rape and abduction of women to be used as sex slaves were widespread.
