By Samuel G. Dweh
Contact channels: +2310886618906/ +2310776583266
samuelosophy@yahoo.com/ samuelosophy1@gmail.com
Many poor—or impoverished—Liberians, especially single mothers, are sending their children into the streets to sell (tour around) various products—food items and non-food items, even though the parents are aware of other parents’ street-selling children hit by moving vehicles (some had died from the car’s hit) or eternally missing (through ritualistic killers)
In the afternoon of Friday, April 14, 2023 (a National Holiday in Liberia, named “Fast & Prayer Day”), I met a 13-year-old boy, self-identified as Jacob Kollie (first photo of this article) wailing (continuously crying loud) in front of the Headquarters (or Command Area) of the Monrovia City Police (MCP), located along Ashmun Street, Monrovia (The building also hosts a branch of the Liberia Immigration Service—LIS). MCP is the enforcement arm of the Monrovia City Corporation (of the Monrovia Government), headed by Mr. Jefferson Tamba Koijee, appointed by President of George Manneh Weah.
I saw the kid crying when I was on my way to see my biological mother under the deadly punches from Pressure (Cardiovascular condition) in the Township of West Point, where I had spent my childhood and part of my adulthood. Seeing this boy crying overwhelmed me with empathy with him, and I asked him about the cause of his wailing. My question was based on my knowledge of where he was crying being relatively restricted to civilians, except the person has come to free his or her market confiscated by an officer of MCP, or the person has come to report to the MCP leadership an officer’s illegal confiscation of his/her wheel barrow with being-traded goods or another container of the trader’s market.
Note from some traders’ complaints: MPC’s Field officers do not confiscate the market of his colleague’s wife or fiancé who is selling at a “no selling” spot or violated any of the other public area’s trading law.
“One police officer seized by market, boiled eggs, in white bucket and gave it to another police woman who took it inside here,” Jacob Kollie responded to my question, and pointed his index finger toward the MCP’s Charge of Quarters investigating other issues related to trading violations. He added: “Four thousand, five hundred and ten dollars boiled eggs in the bucket. The police people say I should go home and bring my mother. But my mother is not home. She gone for my uncle’s burial in Banjor, far away from our house. My ma or my aunty will beat me if I go to the house without the market. My ma’s name is Agnes Peabody,” the little boy responded to my other questions.
I asked a male MCP officer, later identified as Weah Jarboe, standing and listening to the conversation between Jacob and me the boy and I on whether he had knowledge of what transpired between his female colleague and the boy.
“The female officer who seized his market was in plain clothes and sitting with adult traders sitting with their markets over there,” he pointed to three women and one man sitting at the intersection of Ashmun Street and Gurly Street. “When the eggs-selling boy was passing, she called him and said she wanted to buy eggs. But she arrested the bucket. Because she was in plain clothes, she gave the seized market to her female colleague in uniform, who took the bucket with eggs to the law enforcement division inside the building,” Officer Weah Jarboe responded to my question.
Later, officer Jarboe told me reasons for the officer’s confiscation of the boy’s market. “The Law, by the Government of Liberia, says no person below age 18 should be selling anything in the street. This law is to prevent car hitting any child, which might result to death. The law is also for the protection of children against the actions of wicked adults who use children as sacrifices, especially during elections time.” He left.
One of the women who had been listening to the conversations between me and Jacob and between MCP officer Weah Jarboe and me vented out anger on the Liberian President who had introduced or endorsed the effectiveness of such law.
“I, too, am a mother! President George Manneh Weah, or another President, who made this law doesn’t love our children more than we, the parents, do. Some of us are single mothers, the children’s father died or they left us with the children. Some of us, mothers, have four, five or six children to care for, but we don’t have money, or enough money, to provide all the children’s needs. So, we buy things and give them to one or two of the older children to sell on the street. Part of the profit is used to buy more food, buy clothes for all the children, take any of the children to the hospital when he or she is sick, or pay school fees for the children in schools. The Government is doing nothing for us, suffering parents, on children care, but arresting market we gave to our children to sell on the street, to help us care for all the children. Government’s arresting of our street-selling children, through the Monrovia City Police, is carrying up the pressure in the parents from the poverty we are in.”
When the mother marched off, a man, in plainclothes, said to me. “The minimum fee of freeing a seized market, like that of the boy you are talking to, is five hundred dollars.”
To confirm Jacob’s story about the absence of his mother at the family’s house, I told him to take me to the house.
“One policeman told me to give him one hundred dollars, so he can free my market. I gave the money to him, but he disappeared. I can’t see him here,” Jacob reported to me before we left the area.
“We will find him when we are back here,” I assured him.
While we were marching towards Jacob’s house, I asked him on whether he was in school.
“I am in 5th grade at William Brumskin School, located on Front Street,” he responded.
The structure of the house Jacob took me to showed the poor economic status of his family. It was built with aluminum sheets (zincs), with a wooden door. I peeped into the house and saw a cluster of things—old clothes, metals, dishes, and other house hold items—occupying half of the entry points, and at different points. It was one of three houses in a fence, located along Reoberts Street, and the only house in such condition. The other two houses were built with cement.
I introduced myself to five persons—three young men and two women—I met in the yard, and explained my mission.
“His aunt is inside their room,” one lady said to me.
Jacob went into the house to call his aunt. When she was out, I explained my reason of being with her nephew.
“My name is Esther Dolo. His mother, my bigger sister, left early in the morning to attend the burial ceremony of her brother in Banjour, after she boiled the eggs and gave them to Jacob to go and sell around. I don’t know when she will return home. But, I will go to the Monrovia City Police Headquarters on behalf of her mother, to free the market,” Esther said to me.
I took her contact phone number and, after she released the number, I promised to call her three or four hours later to ask her about how the seizure issue had been resolved.
Two hours later, while on my way home from my mother’s house, I branched off to Jacob’s house to get information from his mother or the aunt.
“My senior sister has not returned home. I went to the Monrovia City Police headquarters to free the market. But the group of people who investigated me, on behalf of Jacob’s mother, squeezed ten US dollars out of me. They even wanted to put me into the jail house at the Headquarters, in place of the woman I was representing, for sending a small boy into the street to sell, which they told me is a defiance against the Government’s law against children selling in the street. I was forced to pay the money because I didn’t want to be put into jail. The ten dollars I paid is an equivalent of one thousand plus eight hundred Liberian dollars, which is more than quarter percent of the total amount of money my sister spent on getting the fresh eggs that were boiled for Jacob to sell. That’s a loss to the business,” Esther narrated to this writer.
About six days prior to 13-year-old Jacob Kollie’s weeping-causing experience from the MCP female officers and her colleagues, I met two female children crying at the same place. I was passing by the MCP’s Headquarters (my regular route to get to my sick mother’s house) when their cries attracted my attention. I asked the fatter one the cause of both persons’ cries.
“One City Police woman seized our markets, clothes pins, in pans, when we were selling around on Broad Street. She brought the market here. We are sisters. The City Police people she gave our markets to told me and my sister to go home and bring our parents. But, where we live is too far from here. We live in Doe Community, Clara Town,” the girl I asked responded to my inquiry.
“What’s each person’s age?” I asked the same person.
“I am seventeen, my sister is fourteen,” she answered.
I promised both girls I will help them get their markets back. I went to one of the MCP officers at the Charge of Quarters, introduced myself as a Journalist, showed him my Press Union of Liberia membership ID card, and appealed to him to connect me to the Commander of the Headquarters on a “complaint” I had against one of the female MCP officer.
After viewing my Press ID card, the junior officer led me into the office of a man only identified as “Constance” (the Commander)
During my discussion with the Commander, I suggested he see the two girls I was begging for, as my proof of the persons being represented. He permitted me to bring them into his office.
“I will speak with the officers at the Charge of Quarters on our appeal”
At the end of our discussion, he gave me “0776722281” as his personal phone number.
I wish to end this article with the question from the mother who spoke on Jacob Kollie’s experience: Does the Government that made the ‘Anti-Children’s Street-Selling Law love the street-selling children more than their parents who consciously sent them to the street to sell?
During the period of extreme jobs scarcity, and daily crumbling of civilians’ businesses (due to chronic financial handicap of majority of buyers), the George Manneh Weah-led Government is enforcing a Draconian ‘Trading Law’ (through County’s City Police Force) that’s increasing the hypertension levels of many extremely poor parents.
The global football icon-turned politician—and later Head of State—has not started fulfilling his “Presidential promise” of creating “thirty thousand (30,000) every year.” He’s at the end of his first term in office.
About the Author:
Samuel G. Dweh (a member of the Wedabo ethnic group of Grand Kru County) is professional writer (fiction and non-fiction); member and former president of the Liberia Association of Writers (LAW); and member of the Press Union of Liberia (PUL) He can be reached through: +2310886618906/ +2310776583266
samuelosophy@yahoo.com/ samuelosophy1@gmail.com
