Health

Although Liberia has made incredible and tremendous progress towards stability and reconstruction since the devastating 14-year civil war, the health sector is still dwindling and weak. Indeed, it cannot provide the population with adequate health care. In 2006, the Liberian government introduced a policy of free healthcare across the country. However, not all the country’s health structures are able to implement the policy and offer services free of charge.
Health care is a basic and crucial necessity in Liberia, especially when one considers the high incidence of sexual violence, HIV/AIDS. In addition, there are still high risks associated with childbearing. In fact, the maternal mortality ratio is 1000 deaths or every 100,000 live births, is one of the highest in the world. To add to these complications, Liberia’s fertility rate is one of the highest in the region with an average number of approximately 7 children per woman. If the current state of health care doesn’t improve, one out of 12 women in Liberia risks dying in pregnancy or delivery complications. Another pressing issue in women’s health care is the fact that Liberian women begin having children when they are young. 60% of Liberian women have their first birth before the age of 20. It is no news that strong correlations exist between the number of children as well as the childbearing age and a woman’s education level. As discussed earlier, Education is a major challenge especially in relation to women in Liberia.

Employment

Economically empowering women reaps many benefits for a nation.  Women with income can better care for their children and ensure that their children are educated, supporting the next generation of their country.  Giving women in Liberia who have been cruelly treated in the civil war and who remain target for sexual violence a sense of empowerment and the ability to provide for themselves and their families is critically important.  This is achieved by ensuring that employment opportunities are available for women.

The education provided to women in the trades of agriculture, tailoring, and crafting will lead into employment opportunities.  However training should not be the last contact women have with their instructors.  Support systems should be provided by the training programs so that women who are struggling afterwards can have help.

Education

FRAMEWORK

Africon proposes its framework to be used by the Liberian government for the achievement of women’s reintegration in Liberia. Specific targets are provided for the priority areas of health, education and employment to ensure that programs will be reviewed objectively. This framework applies to a duration of five (5) years which is the initial run of the program.

EDUCATION
In post-war Liberia, 60% of women ages 15 to 49 are illiterate. Overall, 42% of women has never attended school. As these women are struggling to provide for their own families, we are proposing for education projects that are geared towards supporting the Employment project proposals.

Liberian Women Combattants

Liberian Women

EDUCATION

• Literacy rates for women in rural areas is staggeringly low at 26%, compared to 61% for urban women and 60% and 86% for rural and urban men, respectively.

• The gender gap in secondary school attendance is particularly high in the rural areas with a low 6% net attendance ratio for females and 13% for males.  In urban areas this gap is much smaller (29% and 32%, respectively.

LABOR FORCE

• Including formal and informal workers in Liberia, women make up 54% of the labor force (CWIQ 2007).

• Liberian women are disproportionately clustered in the least productive sectors with 90% employed in the informal sector or in agriculture, compared to 75% of working men.  Men are more than three times as likely to be employed by the civil service, an NGO, international organization or public corporation (CWIQ 2007)