Breaking Barriers for Women Politicians in Liberia Through Legal Aid Support
Atty. Mmonbeydo Joah, ED. Organization for Women and Children
.... “Women never seem to have justice, and people take their cases for granted. And this is where we come in. We know that this issue will not go away unless we document it, unless we take it seriously, unless we champion this issue,” said Atty. Mmonbeydo Joah. Atty. Joah is the Executive Director and legal counsel for the Organization for Women and Children, as well as a female lawyer who works with women on various difficulties they face.
Local campaigners, women-led movements, and institutions have been finding ways to prepare women to engage in the political space, citing that greater women representation leads to better economic and democratic outcomes for all. These local institutions have provided and continue to support women in their quest to bridge the gender disparity between men and women in the national legislature, where a majority of the decisions that affect women are made.
“Women never seem to have justice, and people take their cases for granted. And this is where we come in. We know that this issue will not go away unless we document it, unless we take it seriously, unless we champion this issue,” said Atty. Mmonbeydo Joah. Atty. Joah is the Executive Director and legal counsel for the Organization for Women and Children, as well as a female lawyer who works with women on various difficulties they face.
Liberia is ranked 156th out of 162 countries on the Gender Inequality Index. In February 2022, women's organizations and campaigners pushed the legislature to amend the elections law to state that political parties should “endeavor to ensure” there was no less than 30 percent of either gender on their candidate listings. But the law falls short of compliance. According to National Elections Commission data, only nine of the 153 women who competed for legislative seats in the October 10, 2023 elections won.
Finance, traditional norms, and socioeconomic standards are among the reasons that have led to the low ratio of women in public office, as women have experienced intimidation, stereotyping, and deliberate acts of violence at all phases of the election process. These organizations have also ventured into legal aid support for female politicians in the event of alleged violence against them or legal actions brought against them by their male counterparts during the pre and post-election period.
“We worked with over a hundred women candidates in August 2023 to file their applications before the National Elections Commission, as the majority of the women were not financially strong enough to underwrite all of the costs attached. Joah said, “Not only did we work with them on their applications, but we also provided training on how they could go about their campaigns successfully and represented some of them that had issues, and they won those cases even though they did not make it after.”
Joah, a contestant in the 2017 elections in District #2 Grand Bassa County, understands what women politicians go through in Liberia. She decided to focus part of her programs on providing legal support to women desiring to participate in the political space of the country.
As a result, her organization has also been a forerunner on accountability and legal aid for women experiencing violence during elections and has provided legal representation to women facing violence through the Project Accountable Safe Space (PASS). PASS monitors, documents, and legally addresses violence against women in the election.
Not only did it work in ensuring women were qualified, but the institution, through its Executive Director Joah, provided legal representation for over ten of those women who raised issues of irregularities and fraud during the process and won most of those cases even though the recount/re-run prayed for didn’t favor them.
ORWOCH works with women of all ages to fully participate in leadership, decision-making, political activities, and engaging political institutions to promote women's political ambitions, addressing barriers that limit marginalized groups (women, girls, and people with disabilities) political participation.
The group seeks to demystify the political process for women to start their political careers and for more experienced women who had to hone their skills through the Raise the Bar Political Training Program for aspiring women leaders, among others.
“We see this as very crucial to women's participation in our body politics because financial support has been a major issue for women in politics. Often, it is the men who have the money; not many women work or make a business to accumulate the needed resources to underwrite the huge cost that comes with politics. So we see this as one way to attract women to the space, to encourage them and hold people accountable for most of the perpetrated actions against women in politics,” said Atty. Joah.
There is no available data on the number of organizations that are providing legal aid services or capacity-building programs, but we were able to find two organizations (ORWOCH and Sister Aid Liberia) that have squarely focused a greater part of their program on developing women in politics in recent years to bridge the disparity between men and women in elective positions in Liberia.
The organization is a women-led non-governmental organization with a focus on advocacy, sexual reproductive health rights programs, economic empowerment programs, and just about everything else related to business, all geared toward capacity development, political leadership, training, empowerment, and climate justice.
With funds from the Canadian Government, by the end of 2022, Sister Aid introduced what it called the safety clinic for women politicians, which has been running for under a year now. The objective is to educate women on how to go about sourcing funding for their participation in pre and post-electoral activities in their respective communities or districts.
“We have to prioritize economic empowerment of women in politics before the electoral process because even if we push for a reduction in the requirement, where do we get the money? We have six years ahead; now is the time for us to put our feet down, and that’s why we are educating the women on core fundraising and resource mobilization so that, without donor or economic empowerment, they can stand on their own and make a win,” said Amelia Siah Siaffa, the Program Director on Women’s Political Leadership at Sister Aid Liberia.
Siaffa said, “The truth is a lot of us are still very shy and afraid of space. We have to be able to use their persuasive power within our community. There are key people in our constituents that we're able to target before the electoral processes for us to get votes, and you don’t have to have money.”
With the low representation, Siaffa is optimistic that with continued engagement they can succeed in having women in the national legislature, promising to continue its Transformative Leadership and political leadership training to enhance women's capacity to be able to adequately and effectively take on political positions in Liberia.
“We see traditional barriers or motives as one of the factors for the low women political leadership, and the project will work with the traditional concept to hold a community dialogue and awareness within the traditional setting, to spread out the message about women's leadership and its significance,” Siaffa said.
“For the social barriers, we work with men and boys because men and boys are the main perpetrators of most of these things," Siaffa added. "One of the easiest ways to get people involved is to make them active participants in the process. So there's nothing to put them in a room full of fish or barbecues either.”
Editor’s note: This reporting is supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation and NDI’s VAW-PM Program.