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Home » Features » Garway recounts Liberia’s, women’s struggles

Photo by Jessica Birthisel

Liberia's only female newspaper editor, Ora Garway, visited campus last week to talk about her work and her country's history.

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Ora Garway’s work as Liberia’s only female news editor is just one example of the many ways women are rising into positions of leadership in the once war-torn country.

Garway, a guest of associate professor Jim Kelly, spoke in several classes this week, including associate professor Radhika Parameswaran’s J375 Race, Gender and Media course Thursday morning.

She couldn’t tell her own story until she told the modern story of Liberia, her home country on the west coast of Africa.

One major political moment in Liberia’s recent history, says Garway, came in the 1980 military coup resulting in the death of the president and 20 high-ranking government officials. Following the coup, a group identifying themselves as the People’s Redemption Council sought control of the government.

“You can imagine. People who have never been in this position, they misuse the position,” said Garway.

Two civil wars and political unrest continued for more than a decade, resulting in 250,000 deaths and more than a million displaced Liberians. Women experienced many injustices in the form of rape, gang rape and sex slavery, she said.

In 2003, as the conflict climaxed, people around the world decided to take action.

“The international community, especially America, stepped up and said, ‘Enough is enough,’” said Garway.

Liberian women, tired of the rape and murder destroying their and families and country, began to organize and protest outside the presidential palace in Liberia’s capital city, Monrovia.

“Old and young, they were all there, in the sun and rain,” said Garway, and they all requested the same thing: peace.

Photo by Jim Kelly

Garway chatted with IDS staffers (above) about choices in news. She also talked to two journalism classes and  visited the Maurer School of Law while on campus.

Finally, then-President Charles Taylor agreed to meet with one woman who would represent the women’s group. 

‘She told him, ‘We are your mothers. We are your sisters. We are dying. Give us peace,’” said Garway.

The women’s silent protests advanced the peace talks, eventually resulting in Taylor’s exile. That same year, 2003, was the year Garway began her work as a journalist.

“Working as a journalist in Liberia is so tedious,” she said, describing issues of safety, a lack of basic equipment, lack of credibility as a woman, little communication with editors and unstable compensation.

“I worked for two years with no compensation,” Garway explained, but to her it was worth it. “I had a passion for the profession.”

She continued to move her way up but found the same problems at each new publication.

“Nobody wants to listen to you,” she explained. “I wanted to be somewhere where I could share my own feelings with my boss.”

Not only was no one listening to her, but major newspapers were ignoring women’s issues.

“They consider news about women to be soft news,” she explained.

Eventually, Garway decided to become her own boss, launching her biweekly newspaper, Punch, in 2009. Rather than marginalizing women’s issues to the seldom-read interior of the paper, Punch gives prominence and attention to the topics.

One major women’s issue gaining both media and political attention is rape, a high-priority item for the country’s first female president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who took office in 2006. Garway says that political initiatives, such as the Ministry of Gender as well as increased media attention, seek to protect rape victims and decrease their stigmatization, to educate families about the dangers of rape and to punish the offenders.

Photo by Jessica Birthisel

Garway talked about being taken seriously as a woman and as an editor. She launched her own newspaper, Punch, in 2006.

Following Garway’s presentation, journalism senior Loretta Olker said she was struck by how little Americans hear about publications like Punch in Liberia. She said Garway’s talk revealed the strength and leadership ability of African women, particularly those who work as journalists.

“It was great to hear her address that it is a possibility and these women are starting to have a real impact on social issues,” said Olker.

Journalism senior Hannah Helbert was surprised to hear of the bravery of the Liberian women, particularly the one woman who had to go by herself to talk to the president.

“I was moved by that,” said Helbert, who says it’s hard to imagine such horrific conditions while living in the U.S. After the talk, she found herself asking how she would have dealt with such a violent situation.

“I can only hope that if something like that were to ever happen here in the U.S., I would be like those women and make my voice be heard,” she said.

While on campus, Garway also talked to another journalism class and groups of students, and met with leaders and scholars at the IU Maurer School of Law.

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