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)
• Across Liberia’s economy, working men that are paid on wages outnumber women by over three to one (25.5% of all male workers verses 8.0% of all female workers).  Just under half of all Liberia’s workers are engaged in unpaid family work, presumably supporting household agriculture and informal economic activities. 56% of female laborers and 38% of male laborers are engaged as unpaid family workers.

• Given women’s predominance in agriculture and the informal economy, men greatly outnumber women in all other sectors of Liberia’s economy.  The manufacturing sector hires men at a rate of 2 men for every 1 woman.  In mining and panning, more than 9 men are hired to every 1 woman.  In forestry it is nearly 4:1 and in the services sector 3:2.  Only in agriculture and fisheries are men and women employed at an equal 1:1 ratio.

PHYSICAL VIOLENCE

• 44% of women have experienced physical violence since they were 15 years old.

• 29% of women experienced physical violence in the 12 months before the survey was taken

Sexual Violence

• 10% of Liberian women aged 15-49 who have ever had sexual intercourse say that their first sexual experience was forced against their will.

• 17.6% of women age 15-49 have experienced sexual violence.  For those aged 25-39, this rate increased to 22%.

• Of those experiencing sexual violence, 32% report it coming from their current husband/partner, 10.2% from their current/former boyfriend and 8.1% from a police/soldier (Note that there is no distinction in the survey between those soldiers during the war years and police/soldiers now).

Spousal Violence

• 38.6% of ever-married women age 15-49 have experienced physical and/or sexual violence with 36.3% having experienced it in the past 12 months.

• 10.8% of ever-married women age 15-49 have experienced sexual violence from their spouse; 35.8% have experienced emotional violence and 35.0% physical violence.

FGM

• 89% of Liberian women aged 15-49 have heard of the Sande Society

• 58.2% of Liberian women aged 15-49 (39.5% of urban women and 72.0% of rural women) are members of the Sande Society (have undergone FGC).

• Of these women who have been cut, 45.2% think that the tradition should stop.