MONROVIA – George Kronnisanyon Werner has questioned what he describes as unequal responses within Liberia’s justice system, arguing that allegations involving sodomy tend to move faster than rape cases, even when both involve minors. Werner raised the issue in a detailed commentary posted on his official Facebook page on Friday, January 9, 2025.
Werner grounded his argument in two recent allegations involving children. One case involved former Deputy Minister for Youth Development at Liberia’s Ministry of Youth and Sports (MOYS) Bryant McGill, who was accused of raping a minor girl. The other involved Peter Bon Jallah, a senior official of the National Security Agency, who was accused of sexually abusing a minor boy. According to Werner, both allegations were grave and involved children, yet the public reaction and institutional response were markedly different.
In the case involving McGill, Werner noted that the response followed a familiar and cautious pattern. The accused was suspended pending investigation, while law enforcement authorities emphasized due process, the need for evidence, and forensic confirmation, particularly DNA analysis. The case was framed as sensitive and complex, requiring patience.
Werner observed that although public outrage emerged in that matter, it was fragmented and quickly softened by arguments centered on procedure, presumption of innocence, and limitations within the investigative system. As a result, the case progressed slowly and cautiously.
By contrast, Werner said the allegation involving Jallah triggered a far more forceful national reaction. “The language was harsher, the outrage more visceral, and the demand for swift action unmistakable,” he wrote, noting that calls for immediate arrest and remand dominated public discourse even before investigative clarity had fully emerged.
According to Werner, this contrast was not coincidental. He argued that it reflected deeper social dynamics about how Liberian society defines deviance and how those definitions influence justice. “It reveals how Liberian society defines deviance and how those definitions shape justice,” he stated.
Drawing on his academic experience, Werner recalled lessons he once taught while lecturing on Penology and Social Deviance at Mother Pattern College of Health Sciences. He said he often reminded students that the way a society defines a problem largely determines how it responds to it, emphasizing that social deviance is shaped by history, power, religion, culture, and prevailing moral anxieties.
Werner explained that societies frequently respond more aggressively to acts perceived as threats to moral order than to acts that cause measurable human suffering. Behaviors that unsettle deeply held norms often provoke moral panic, while acts that are tragically familiar, even when devastating, are absorbed into everyday social reality.
He further pointed out that Liberian law itself reflects distinctions that interact with these social attitudes. Under the Penal Law, rape, particularly statutory rape involving minors, carries some of the heaviest penalties in the criminal code. At the same time, the law criminalizes what it terms “deviate sexual intercourse,” commonly referred to as sodomy, as an offense in itself.
“In Liberian law, voluntary sodomy is criminalized not because of force or harm, but because the act itself is deemed morally unacceptable,” Werner wrote, adding that when such allegations involve minors, they fall under the jurisdiction of the Sexual Offenses Court alongside rape and other aggravated sexual crimes.
Werner argued that in a justice system with limited forensic capacity, these legal distinctions matter. Rape cases often depend on medical reports, DNA evidence, and corroboration that are not always readily available. Sodomy allegations, by contrast, are criminalized per se, making them easier to frame at the charging stage.
However, Werner stressed that law alone does not explain why one category of cases appears to move faster than another. He pointed instead to culture, describing Liberia as a deeply socially conservative society where religious beliefs strongly influence public morality and same-sex conduct is widely condemned.
He noted that allegations involving sodomy are often interpreted not only as crimes against children but as violations of collective moral identity, triggering fear, panic, and demands for immediate punishment. In such cases, the state responds not only as a protector of children but as a guardian of moral order.
By contrast, Werner said rape of girls occupies a tragic but normalized space in Liberian society. Sexual violence against girls is widespread and persistent, and over time this prevalence has produced desensitization rather than urgency. Investigations slow, evidence is questioned, and patience is urged.
Werner concluded that justice systems are meant to respond to harm, not shock value. When moral offense becomes the primary driver of urgency, he warned, punishment risks becoming performative rather than protective. “The law may declare all children equal,” Werner wrote, “but society’s reactions reveal that some violations still trouble our conscience more than others. That is where injustice begins.”
