Liberia

Liberia is located in western Africa, on the North Atlantic coast between Côte d'Ivoire and Sierra Leone. It is Africa's oldest republic, having been settled by freed American slaves in the 1820s and declared an independent country in 1847. Today, Liberia is reeling from the aftermath of two civil wars, lasting from 1989 to 1996 and again from 1999 to 2003. The election of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in fall 2005 seems to mark the beginning of a more peaceful era for the country, but sporadic fighting continues, and the work of rebuilding is massive.

The population is estimated at 3 million people, with an annual growth rate of 4.91 percent—driven largely by the return of refugees displaced by the wars. There are now 27.4 migrants per 1,000 residents, 44.8 births per 1,000, and 23.1 deaths per 1,000. Almost half the population lives in urban areas. Population density is 29 people per square kilometer.

Poverty is nearly universal. The collapse of the economy has left 85 percent of the labor force out of work, the highest unemployment rate in the world. Per capita income is $140 annually. About 80 percent of the population live on less than $1 a day. One in six Liberians depends on humanitarian food aid to get by. Lfe expectancy at birth is 39 years for males and 44 years for females, with healthy life expectancy at 36 years for men and 37 years for women. Infant mortality is 156 deaths per 1,000 live births. For children between the ages of 1 and 5, the mortality rate is 230 deaths per 1,000. Maternal mortality is 760 deaths per 100,000 live births

Warfare displaced 300,000 people in the 1990s, the majority of them women and children. Almost 40 percent of children under the age of 5 show stunted growth (a bellwether of malnutrition), another 26 percent are underweight, and 6 percent are acutely malnourished. There are an estimated 230,000 orphans under the age of 17. Children in some areas have been [Page 1018]dragooned into militias. Schools and immunization programs have virtually ceased to function.

The fertility rate for Liberian women is high, with the average woman giving birth to six children during her reproductive life; only 10 percent use any form of birth control. About 50 percent of births are monitored by a trained attendant. One-half of women polled in a recent survey reported that they had been physically or sexually assaulted by a combatant during the war. Widespread sexual abuse has led to an increase in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies, and induced abortions, especially among refugee women.

There have been no reliable statistics on morbidity and mortality in Liberia for many years, but even before the decade of turmoil, the country ranked 43rd out of 46 sub-Saharan countries in mortality rates. Today, only about 25 percent of Liberians have access to clean drinking water or sanitary facilities. Common infectious diseases include bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, malaria, yellow fever, schistosomiasis, Lassa fever, hepatitis A, typhoid, acute respiratory infection, and cholera.

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