Four Liberian immigrant boys are charged with the rape of an 8 year old Liberian girl in Phoenix. The oldest boy is 14. A second boy is 13 and the two youngest are 10. The 14 year old is being tried as an adult and entered a plea yesterday. He is charged with with one count each of kidnapping, sexual assault and attempted sexual conduct with a minor, and five counts of sexual conduct with a minor.The District Attorney also wants to charge the 13 year old as an adult.

The allegation is that the four boys lured the girl into a shed in their apartment complex with a promise of gum, restrained her and raped her.

After the alleged rape the girl’s father was quoted as saying that he did not want the daughter anymore–that she had shamed the family. Child Protective Services then took the eight year old out of the household.

The children, and all of them are children, come from a country where children are raped all too often. According to Doctors without Borders which treated 275 rape victims in the first four months of this year in Liberia, 61 per cent of the victims were under 13 years old and 28 percent of the victims were under 5 years old. Rape only became illegal in Liberia in 2006.

According to an Associated Press article the fourteen year old was raised in a refugee camp in the Ivory Coast. He came to the United States with his mother and his sister in 2005. His father is still in Africa.

The girl cannot understand why she has been taken away from her family. Instead of receiving the support she needs, she thinks she is being punished for the rape.

The criminal justice system in Phoenix has failed all of the children. The girl has been removed from her family and her support system. Her family needs counseling and help but putting her with strange people is the wrong thing to do. She feels like she is being punished–exactly the wrong feeling for her to have.

The boys, particularly the 14 year old are being punished for behavior that they committed without any evil intent. They came from a country where rape was an everyday thing. It was not even illegal when they left the country. Now they are in a strange country being treated as adult and being held to adult standards. They are in serious need of help and counseling, as are other refugees from war torn countries. But incarceration is not the solution.