A Liberian diplomat has reported that his daughter, aged seven at the time, was allegedly ganged raped on the premises of the Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria.
“As medical result reveals, our baby’s sexual torture at the hands of these perpetrators have caused substantial damages to her womanhood which if not corrected medically at this very moment, would just ruin her future,” he stated.
“All I have asked from my government is at least some form of attention for this young victim, someone who suffered repeated abuse from these rapists. But all I have gotten in response from my government in this aspect of welfare for the child is ‘cold-shoulder’ with no concern at all for my daughter’s deteriorating health which is affecting her so gravely in particular and my entire family in general. This is hurting our once brilliant and intelligent daughter’s schooling, including her academic performances due to her ‘on and off’ health situation,” the long serving foreign mission diplomat explained.
“I’m constrained to use this public space because all efforts that I have applied diplomatically to get the attention of relevant authorities here to particularly care for the welfare of my sexually abused baby have only produced no response, making closure on such a traumatizing incident to be yet far off and continues to haunt my family,” the Minister Counselor for Press and Public Affairs cried.
The Liberian diplomat said those alleged rapists on multiple times, over a period of seven months, abused his baby right on the premises of the Liberian Embassy while the two perpetrators themselves were under the guidance of a colleague diplomat also assigned at the Abuja Mission adding, “He himself, up to today’s date, shows no remorse for the acts carried out by his wards against my baby.”
“For the past eight months, I have been asking our Liberian Government to take full responsibility of catering to the child’s wellbeing while pursuing justice; something that has been completely ignored right from when such an alarming matter finally came to our attention on April 17, 2021,” he maintained.
“Upon being briefed over the deteriorating health of our baby, I wrote a personal letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, His Excellency Dee Maxwell Saah Kemayah, Sir but to date there is response or even any courtesy at all to even acknowledge receipt of said letter.
“I copied on that letter my own Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism which seconded me to the Liberian Embassy in Abuja. I also shared copies with the Offices of the Vice President, Her Excellency Dr (Chief) Jewel Howard-Taylor and the Honorable Minister of State for Presidential Affairs, Nathaniel Farlo McGill respectively for their attentions.
“I would have thought that as a diplomat serving our country in a foreign country, this situation would have the fullest attention of our government on the welfare aspect of the abused child whenever such an unfortunate incident happens to any diplomat while on national duty,” he told a press conference yesterday in Monrovia.
“This is like sending a soldier in the battlefield to represent your country but gets wounded on the battlefield in the line of national duty and yet, you can’t get attended to while in your pains, pains you acquired not on your personal vacation but on an international assignation, helping to bolster your country’s prestigious image,” he moaned.
“I have come here today as a very last resort to gain the attention of President Weah who heads this government; a government that is my direct employer for which I have diligently served with so much passion and commitment in helping to foster the bilateral relations between our country and Nigeria, a very strategic bilateral partner of ours,” he told reporters.
“I am seeking the attention of particularly the President, the ‘Feminist In Chief’ because he is so resolved on protecting the rights of the girl child. So, I am using this means to bring to the attention of President Weah over the deteriorating health condition of my eight years old daughter. He is a father and a chief protector of child’s rights and I am very sure that when this reaches him, he will listen,” the wailing father believed.
He expressed, “My appeal to President Weah comes in the wake of the ongoing 16 Days of Activism, with our country’s national theme being “Enough is Enough! Let’s Act Now To End Violence Against Women, Girls, Children and Other Marginalized Groups”. This ties with the global theme “End Violence Against Women Now”!
“The situation compelled me to move my family out of the government assigned apartment based on Ambassador Al-Hassan Conteh’s unnecessary biases over his “intervention” that convinced me that my family was not safe any longer under his leadership.,” the survivor’s father stressed.
Similarly, Kemayah, as Liberia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations was accused of sexual harassment by a Liberian staff of the mission in New York immediately after his nomination for the new post was announced.
Even though the government and other stakeholders are yet to establish any fact linking Ambassador Kemayah to the sexual harassment allegation leveled against him by Whynee Cummings Wilson, the lady herself has challenged the Ambassador to a lie-detector test.
The report of Kemayah’s involvement in sexual harassment comes at the time when President Weah declared rape as a national emergency and launched a roadmap to address the issue of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV).
Ms. Wilson, in a dispatch from New York, reminded the US Mission, UN authorities and Minister Williametta Piso Saydee-Tarr, Liberia’s Minister of Gender with Cc to several top Liberian officials how Ambassador Kemayah allegedly molested and sexually harassed her on January 8, 2020 yet that matter hangs in an imbalance due to ‘so-called’ diplomacy.