Prison Fellowship Liberia, with support from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, has officially launched a project aimed at amplifying the voices of Liberian youths to help them access justice.
The Country Director of the Fellowship, Reverend Francis Kollie, announced that the project, titled “Collecting the Voices of Liberian Youths to Access Justice,” will enable Prison Fellowship Liberia (PFL) to collaborate with the Ministry of Justice to gather information from youths in order to provide them with legal services.
Reverend Kollie made these remarks during an interview following a two-day training session in Gbarnga, Bong County, focused on monitoring and record management for human rights advocates.
He expressed gratitude to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights for sponsoring the training workshop for advocates on monitoring and record-keeping in human rights.
Reverend Kollie highlighted one of the pressing issues facing Liberia: a significant number of youths are in detention without legal representation. “Some have been in detention for many years, some for months, and others for weeks,” he noted, adding that these individuals are deprived of access to lawyers or legal aid providers.
“The primary goal of this training is to collect the voices of youths who are in detention so that PFL can collaborate with the Justice Ministry. We aim to gather their names, understand the reasons for their detention, and explore avenues for legal representation.”
He continued, “Following the training, we hope to work alongside the Bureau of Corrections at the Ministry of Justice to deploy monitors who will gather the necessary information to provide legal assistance or mediate in their cases.”
According to Reverend Kollie, the project, themed “Enhancing and Protecting Civic Space and People’s Participation,” will also seek avenues for some youths behind bars to potentially harmonize their cases with complainants through conflict resolution mechanisms.
