In September of 2020, President George Weah of Liberia declared rape a national emergency following a three day protest in the capital city of Monrovia. A World Health Organization report estimated 75% of women in Liberia at the end of the civil war had experienced rape. Gurira interviewed thirty women including former women soldiers and women in the Peace Movement who are credited with forcing an end to the Civil War. The play ends when Charles Taylor leaves Liberia, signaling the winding down of the long civil war. In 1990, at the beginning of the brutal, 14 year Liberian Civil War, the U.S. citizens were evacuated and U.S. involvement, for practical purposes, ended.

Source: The North Africa Journal May 01, 2023 16:18 UTC