MONROVIA, LIBERIA-A delegation of Liberian lawyers representing the Association of Female Lawyers (AFELL), headed by its Vice President Cllr. Bowuolo Taylor Kelley has returned home after participating in a three-day Waging Justice for Women Fellowship conference held in Nairobi, Kenya.

The three-day gathering was hosted by one of AFELL” ‘s partners, the Cooney Foundation of Justice, where intensive and meaningful capacity development initiatives were held.

The participants’ skills were sharpened to enhance their capacities in the representation of women, including trauma-informed case management, strategic litigation, fundraising, and media for human rights lawyers, among others.

As part of the training, a panel discussion was held on the status of strategic litigation across Africa, where over thirty women lawyers, including lawyers of Liberia from ten African Countries, who are frontliners on Waging Justice for Women in Africa, actively and robustly participated.

Presenting Liberia’s case, as one of the panelists, AFELL’s Vice President Cllr. Taylor Kelley, highlighted the fight against female genital mutilation and the challenges of civil and customary laws, adding that there is no current legislation that criminalizes the practice of FGM, thereby making it difficult to bring perpetrators to justice on the charge, as other jurisdictions have enacted anti-FGM laws and policies.

Cllr. Taylor-Kelley, however, informed the body that even though FGM is not criminalized in the Penal Code, certain provisions of the 1976 Penal Code address FGM-related offenses, making specific reference to aggravated assault, kidnapping and recklessly endangering another person that could be applied in some instances.

In 2018, former President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf issued Executive Order 92, as an initial step to abolishing the practice of FGM in Liberia, specifically protecting girls below the age of 18, and imposing lenient penalties on the perpetrators.