By Alex Yomah
Vice President Jewel Howard Taylor has reiterated call for capital punishment for anyone who commits rape in Liberia.
In her word, “Heinous rape is the form of rape that is beyond human imagination. For instance; if a 40-year old man rapes a 3-year old baby, such a crime is worth life-for-life sentence.”
“I always told people that if anybody rapes my grandson or go and do something to my granddaughter, you are looking for me because I am not going to the Police; because, by the time you go to the Police, it becomes a long story,” Madam Taylor explained.
“I always say, my children are precious to me. Be normal people, the day the children want to have sex, they will do but will not be for an old person to come and rape them; that one will not happen. Maybe between that person and me, one person will go in the morgue, while the other will be in prison because for me, it is unacceptable,” she said.
Speaking on State Radio during a joint interview with reporters in Monrovia, Madam Taylor explained, “When I said capital punishment for rape, I was frustrated because the process of the law considering long time and in the end people are sent to prison and then, it becomes a word of the state and the state has to take care of the would-be rapists.”
What is disgusting, the Vice President said, “Some of the men would deliberately rape or kill and say, “We don’t care; we will kill this woman and after all, I will go to jail and the country will pay for me to stay in jail.”
The Vice President lamented that rapists have motives for raping and according to her, there is a whole mentality issue that “We have to look at when it comes to the level our kids are raped.”
“What is really happening In Liberia, why are men most often doing all of these negative things when we have a 40-year old man rape a 2-year old baby and what do you do with him? What is the signal that we are sending to show that this is an unacceptable behavior?” she decried.
Vice President Taylor said, it saddens her always when she looks at the statistics of rape cases across the country where old men are in the constant habit of raping teenagers; while men on other hand, slaughtering their wives because of rumors that she is reportedly involved into extra sexual affairs.
“I am not sure what is happening is the effect of going to sleep with a 2-year old baby. I do know that the issue of rape is very alarming and when it comes to issue of violence especially since covid-19 tripled, there is now more violence in the homes. Maybe because people were forced to stay home for a long period as opposed to everyone going out and coming back at the end of the day,” she said.
However, Vice President Taylor is urging parents to take some responsibilities, noting that they too are putting their children at risk as mothers, adding, “Why would you send your three-year old child to go and buy water for someone you refer to as her ‘uncle’ when he is capable of doing so.
