Deputy Commissioner General – Naturalization
As GNN-Liberia continues its weekly profile for individuals who are nationalistically contributing to the growth and development of Africa’s oldest Republic, Liberia in the sustenance of lasting peace, the editorial staff of GNN-Liberia is once again pleased to pen down another Liberian who falls into this category.
One of those is the current Deputy Commissioner General of the Liberia Immigration Service (LIS), Madam Asatu Bah – Kenneth; a Liberian women activist, former Deputy Inspector General of the Liberian police and founder of the Liberian Muslim Women’s Organization whose protests helped in bringing to an end to the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003.
Asatu Bah Kenneth is an anti-war activist who organised Muslim women protests calling an end to the Liberian civil war. She teamed up with fellow Liberian peace activist Leymah Roberta Gbowee, founder of a women’s peace movement, Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace.
Her protests, mostly involving women clad in white, included sex strikes and sit-ins that successfully engendered ceasefire negotiations resulting to the exile and subsequent trial of Charles Taylor at The Hague for crimes against humanity.
Asatu Bah Kenneth was a founding chief of the Liberal National Party of Queensland’s (LNP) Women and Children Protection Act Section 2005. She was a police officer since 1985 and was appointed by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to replaced Munah Sieh in 2005, who as head of police at the time was under investigation for police uniforms’ procurement malpractice. Together with Beatrice Munah Sieh and Vera Manly, Asatu was among three key female figures who helped to shape NLP’s “gender sensitive” reforms.
Madam Bah-Kenneth is a product of the Louise Arthur Grimes School of Law where she held a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) Sociology where she graduated; she is a member of the Liberia National Bar Association (LIBA), Executive Member of the Liberia National Law Enforcement Association (LINLEA), and served as President, Liberia Female Law Enforcement Association (LFLEA). Madam Bah-Kenneth has been regarded as a credible human rights advocate and female law-enforcement activist for the common good of all in the community.
Madam Bah-Kenneth’s advocacy for women’s right has come a very long way, particularly when she represented Liberia at one of the international conferences held in Washington, the United States at a US sponsored Institute of Peace in 2009 when she spoke demanding for Full Inclusion of women participation into Security Sector Structures.
At that time Asatu Bah-Kenneth also said Liberian women police officers were being encouraged to learn specialized skills, stressing that We want to have women who can be trained in sexual exploitation and abuse because we believe that women victims are more comfortable in reporting cases to them,.
Sampling the views of women in the security sector by our staff, it was observed that many of the women spoken to poured praises on our profile of the week for her quest to see women forming part of the security sector, adding she is a woman of virtue who will forever be remembered for her professionalism and advocacy over the years.
Join us next week for another profile of the week.
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