Liberia: Stolen Childhood

Overview

Unreported World reveals how Liberia is facing a child rape crisis. Six years after the end of a brutal civil war in which rape was routinely used as a weapon, children still face the daily fear of being attacked, and the west African country's hospitals are overwhelmed with child victims - a quarter of them under four years of age. Reporter Jenny Kleeman and director Matt Haan begin their disturbing journey in the Liberian capital, Monrovia. They meet Mercy, a six-year-old girl who was abducted and raped two weeks previously. She is now taking drugs to try to stop her from contracting HIV and lives in a safe house, run by a Liberian charity, many of whose inhabitants can never return home; reporting the rape is seen as disgracing the family, especially if the perpetrator is a relative.