Liberia

Located on the Atlantic coast of Africa, Liberia shares a border with Sierra Leone, Guinea and Cote d’Ivoire. Late twentieth century Liberia suffered through a military coup and two bloody civil wars, but 2005 and 2011 saw the first relatively peaceful elections in decades for a political system largely modelled on that used in the United States. During the period of civil war, Liberia was the site of human rights abuses on a vast scale, the impact of which is still being dealt with. While the situation has improved greatly since then, discrimination against women, minorities and LGBT people, abuses by police and the persistence of harmful traditional practices remain serious problems.