National Roadmap on Protection of Children Living in Street Situations in Liberia Final Report

The qualitative aspect of this mixed-methods study sampled 403 participants (193 children living in street situations and 210 parents/guardians) from Liberia’s 15 counties; 14 representatives from the Child Protection Network (CPN); two Government ministries, two UN agencies and three NGO/partners while the quantitative component sampled 159 out of the 225 respondents (15 each from the 15 counties); this constitutes 70.6% response rate. The sampling technique for this study was purposive. Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) were instruments used to collect the qualitative data, and the Kobo Toolbox software was used to collect the quantitative data.

The qualitative aspect of this mixed-methods study sampled 403 participants

1. Policy and legal Issues [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

2. Strengthen drug laws in the country and enhance the capacity of the DEA by providing logistics, etc. Death penalty (capital punishment) is preferred by most of the participants, but where Government cannot do so due to international requirements, a nonbillable law for narcotic drugs is needed and desired to protect the national interest and safe the state. Also, there should be civil liability on those who sell drugs to children. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

3. Harmonize the statutory and customary laws on the age of consent because one (the statutory) says age 18 while the other (customary) says 16 years. This conflict is being used in some counties where cultural, religious, and traditional practices promote child marriage. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

4. County Administrations need to effectively coordinate all sector ministries and partners in the counties to ensure delivery of services to children at county, district, and community levels. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

5. License traditional medical practitioners/herbalists to operate within medical centers as a complimentary arm of treatment across the country because majority of those who participated in the study said, “they take traditional medicine and trust the herbalist more than the medical practitioners”. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

6. Need to activate the Child Wellbeing Council created by law and fund it under the National budget to increase child protection across the country. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

7. Organize the Child Welfare Committees across the country in all counties and districts so that they can serve as an alternative peer group towards which children can gravitate. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

8. Remove disabled persons from the street to prevent them from using children as beggars. Disable persons equally need to be prevented from peddling drugs as claimed by the participants in the study. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

9. Provide clarity on the issue of gays and lesbians’ rights because it is unclear what government policy is on this matter. It was reported in some of the counties that these acts are being practiced in some communities and this makes parents to put their children out. Notably, Liberia’s domestic relations law provides for marriage only between a male and a female. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

10. Empower traditional leaders that live on running “bush schools” as agreed in the moratorium on traditional schools so that the practitioners can take one alternative livelihoods. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

11. Address the violent and unacceptable conduct of motor cyclists across the country, and [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

12. Conduct a national study on prostitution and transactional sex by teenage boys and girls in the country to find out the root causes. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

14. Empowerment of Parents [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

15. Address extreme poverty of parents because it disempowers parents from providing the basic needs to their children; hence, the major cause of children living in street situations in the country. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

16. Empower poor and vulnerable parents with farming tools, funding collateral and revamp the Cooperative Development Agency to form these vulnerable groups into effective cooperatives for economic empowerment programs. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

17. Child education [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

18. Enforce the free and compulsory primary education policy by increasing the education budget, building primary schools where they are not found, and providing more trained teachers. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

19. Provide school feeding to children in all public schools because it is one of the solutions to getting children in school and retaining them there as most families are poor and vulnerable and cannot find food for themselves and their children. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

20. Improve the quality of education in the rural areas and provide trained or professional teachers so that children can remain with their families in the rural areas and go to school. This might reduce rural-urban migration. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

21. Commit to quality primary education as a national emergency to allow partners raise funds to compliment the efforts of national government. This might help Liberia achieve SDG 4. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

22. Transform public high schools in the counties into multilaterals where children will gain both academic and professional vocation skills so that graduates from high school can be marketable and fit for the job market to rebuild Liberia. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

24. Child health, justice, wellbeing, and rehabilitation [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

25. Build and equipped safe homes in all counties and districts to cater to the wellbeing of children whose rights get abused. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

26. Build rehabilitation centers to treat children that are abusing drugs because human resource is the most important resource of any country. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

27. Provide hot meals and mobile health services to vulnerable and impoverished children in communities across the country. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

28. Provide separate detention centers for children in conflict with the law. They should not be mixed with adult criminals in detention. Alternatively, rehabilitation centers should be built for them. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

29. The issue of putting pregnant and lactating mothers needs to be given serious consideration such that the babies’ survival is not compromised because of their mothers serving prison sentences. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

30. Law enforcement officers need to pursue alternative dispute resolution mechanisms in cases where children report parents to them. Parents are offended by children taking them to the law. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

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