A 20-year-old trans woman was brutally attacked in New Kru Town. The case was settled in the community for $120. Her attacker remains at large.
By Patrick Gogo
MONROVIA — She was walking home just before dawn, alone, after a friend’s all-night birthday party near Club 18 in New Kru Town. It was around 5:30 a.m. on June 6 when a man she did not know stopped her, accused her of being gay, and attacked her with a cutlass, striking her on the head and on her back as she lay on the ground, crying for help.
“I was coming from my friend’s birthday party, around five in the morning, when it happened,” said the victim, a 20-year-old transgender woman who agreed to speak with JournalRAGE about the attack. “Each time I think about it, I just feel bad — thinking about how the boy almost killed me.”
No one has been charged. The attacker, identified by community members as Josiah Wiah, a man in his late 30s, is still at large. The case was settled quietly, at the community level, for $120, paid not by Wiah, who never appeared, but by his family.
A CASE CLOSED BEFORE IT OPENED
The victim was rushed to Jerome’s Clinic in Lagoon, New Kru Town, for treatment after the attack.
A young boy who had been picking mangoes from a nearby tree witnessed the assault. His mother, who spoke with JournalRAGE, said her son recognized the victim as a friend of his older brother and began shouting for others to intervene. There were initially two attackers, she said; one fled immediately, while the other continued striking the victim until a crowd began to gather.
“I got very angry after I saw they nearly killed the boy with the cutlass,” the mother said. “If it was my child, I was never going to settle it community way — I would have taken the case to court.”
A JournalRAGE reporter contacted the Zone-1 Depot 1 police station in New Kru Town. The commander of the Women and Children Protection Section declined to give her name or comment on the case, saying she was not handling it. When the reporter asked to speak with the officer in charge, she was told no one was available.
Liberia National Police spokesperson Sam Collins said the matter had not yet reached his office. “I cannot make any comments on something that is not before me right now,” he said, adding that he would follow up.
Lawrence Bestman, the community chairman, told JournalRAGE that he called Wiah after the attack, but the man did not appear. Both parties — without Wiah present — later agreed to withdraw the matter from police and resolve it internally. Wiah’s family paid the victim $120 and compensated her for a phone and other belongings taken during the attack.
“If anybody discriminates against a person in my community, that person will face the full penalty of the law,” Bestman said. He invoked language broad in its principle if not in its practice: “Human rights is the crucial thing every human being should understand — regardless of race, regardless of sexual orientation, regardless of any religious background.”
“I JUST WANT THE PERSON TO GO”
The victim said she ultimately accepted the settlement because she had no one to lean on. Her mother died in 2017. When she called her stepfather from the clinic after the attack, he told her he “doesn’t have anything to do with such.”
“I am just alone,” she said. “Only my friends are near me, no family. That was the reason I was forced to listen to what the people were saying and let it go.”
She was not at peace with the decision. “I am going through hard pain right now,” she said. “This was my first time for this kind of thing to happen to me. Sadness can grab me.”
A PATTERN OF VIOLENCE, A GAP IN THE LAW
The attack in New Kru Town is not isolated.
In June 2025, a 26-year-old transgender woman identified by the pseudonym Angel was beaten unconscious by community members in Ganta, Nimba County, after being accused of homosexuality — struck with sticks, rocks, and the handle of a mortar pestle. That case, too, was settled at the community level after police briefly detained suspects.
In May 2021, members of a community watch team beat three men in Paynesville’s Gobachop community on suspicion of homosexuality, rendering one of them unconscious. A month later, a student at St. Matthew United Methodist School in New Kru Town was expelled for cross-dressing. In 2020, a former soldier was arrested for reportedly brutalizing 27 men on similar suspicions.
Liberian law does not criminalize identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. But it does criminalize same-sex sexual conduct under Articles 14.74, 14.79, and 50.7 of the 1976 Penal Code, which classify “voluntary sodomy” as a first-degree misdemeanor carrying up to one year in prison. That legal framework, human rights defenders say, creates an environment where violence against LGBTIQ people goes unpunished.
In 2024, Representative Johnson N. Williams of River Gee County introduced the Anti-Homosexuality Act, which would impose harsher penalties on LGBTIQ individuals and their allies, aligning Liberia with Uganda and other nations that have moved to restrict LGBTIQ rights by statute.
The 2024 Independent National Commission on Human Rights report documented continuing instances of assault, harassment, and hate speech against LGBTIQ people in Liberia.
ORGANIZATIONS RESPOND
TNOL, a human rights organization, condemned the attack. The organization’s program manager said the group was deeply troubled by what happened.
“We are deeply concerned by the reported attack against a young transgender person and reiterate that violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity have no place in our society,” the program manager said. “We call for accountability, equal protection under the law, and stronger measures to safeguard vulnerable communities.”
Wiah has not been arrested. The case is closed. The victim is recovering.