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This is an article from the Liberian press.

Liberia: Amnesty International On DDRR Flaws


AllAfrica aggregates reports from Africa's news media. This is an article from the Liberian press. It is not a report by AllAfrica.

Amnesty International and its local partners are insisting that the Disarmament, demobilization, Rehabilitation and Reintegration (DDRR) of former fighters of the Liberian civil conflict is punctured with imbalance, in that former female fighters have been discriminated against.

This latest assessment tends to disprove the executor of the program, the NCDDRR that the exercise was successfully carried out with both men and women receiving fair treatment and participation.

But with report by Amnesty International (AI) that the process was flawed, executor's claims have been questioned.

And according to some analysts, the latest findings from the post launch initiative is a corroboration of what was earlier reported during the premier launch at the Antoinette Tubman Stadium.

Some times ago, Amnesty International, an astute international human rights advocacy institution in collaboration with Liberian Coalition of NGOs launched a research report in which it said that flaws characterized the DDRR in that female fighters were being discriminated against.

Following the launch of the research report, the international human rights agency is conducting a post-launch of the documentary, notifying that the process left behind tales of sorrow, imbalance and inconsistency.

Thompson Ade-Baryor, Chairman of the Liberian Coalition of NGOs, the group Amnesty International is collaborating with the latest information it obtained clearly bespeaks the level of imperfection that characterized the process.

According to him, assessment conducted in almost of all Liberia's fifteen sub-division showed that most female did not get fair treatment as was done to their male counterparts during the "give your guns" process.

Ade-Baryor flanked by AI's representative to Liberia, said, "The report made by Amnesty International during their research in Liberia that there is a flaw in the process is correct,"

Besides what is being notified by the AI, he said, "We ourselves, as a local Liberian Coalition of NGOs along with out colleague from Canada discovered that there is a flaw in the process."

"Some many women were left out; so many girls were left out; and we received some stories that are very sorrowful; stories that are pathetic, that needs to clutch the attention of the government, the international community, and the NCDDRR to make adjustments in the remaining RR aspect of the program," he said.

Ade-Baryor heads Liberian Watch for Human Rights as Executive Director, and his office of LWHR is temporarily housing the Liberian Coalition of NGOs.

According to him, the stories they are told are all the same and that the revelations were made in the presence of the AI's Representative who is working with them across the country.

Based on what they have discovered, he said there is a glaring need for the work of the NCDDRR to be improved upon so as not to blemish the remaining the exercise, and some of the women left out of the process needs to be encouraged,; but he did not say by whom and by what means.

He said the latest discovery means that the government and the international community focus its support to the work of the NCDDRR to enable it cater to those who cheated against.

Most of the discrimination seems to be a result of misinformation that circulated that they (former fighters) would be arrested upon delivery of their weapons. AI Representative from Canada also added his voice saying that the process was not free of improprieties.


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