2020: Survey on Youth Prospects and Attitudes

October 2020: LEON’s survey of 4,356 randomly selected young people across Liberia and found that lack of employment opportunities was linked to education attained, and this also influenced the decision to go into sex work or the likelihood of becoming a drug user. Worryingly, a fifth of young people reported having sex for the first time under the age of consent, which constitutes statutory rape. More needs to be done to improve access to education and to offer counselling for extremely marginalized youth.

LEON also found that 37% of young men over the age of 20 are involved in political party activities, which was twice the percentage of young women. LEON calls on the political parties to be mindful of how they harness this young energy prior to the election, not to use disaffected youth to commit violent acts against rivals and to involve more young women in their activities.