-Involving 14 Children
MONROVIA – Criminal Court “A,” Judge Roosevelt Z. Willie has found five women guilty of Trafficking in Persons (TIP) and Criminal Conspiracy, concluding a high-profile case that exposed a complex plot to traffic 14 minors out of Liberia.
The defendants—Halimantu Daramy, Grace Sesay, Hawa Kamara, Hearita Beyace, and Famata Doe—were indicted by the Grand Jury for Montserrado County on August 22, 2025. They faced charges after being intercepted by Liberian Immigration Services at the Redlight Parking area in April 2025 while attempting to transport the children out of the country.
During the trial, Prosecution’s first witness, Willet Kangar of the Liberia Immigration Service, testified that on April 10, 2025, officers conducting routine document inspections at the Redlight Parking Station encountered the five female defendants in possession of 14 children. According to the witness, Halimatu Daramy presented herself as the leader of the group. The scene raised immediate suspicion when officers noticed several of the children crying excessively while being fed juice.
The prosecution’s case was bolstered by the testimony of Chief Inspector Emmanuel F. Walker of the Liberia National Police’s Women and Children Protection Section. Walker testified that the defendants were brought to the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit at police headquarters on April 11, 2023. He told the court that the women had been picked up by immigration authorities while preparing to travel through the Ivory Coast to Burkina Faso, with a final destination of Mali.
Walker stated that all defendants were informed of their Miranda and constitutional rights but waived their right to legal counsel. According to his testimony, the women provided statements detailing their sides of the story, which were read back to them and signed. The witness specifically refuted claims made by defendants Famata Doe, Grace Sesay, and Hawa Kamara during the trial, stating that their assertions of never having given statements were “false and misleading.”
The Court’s Findings
In his final ruling, Judge Willie addressed the central issue: whether the defendants committed the crime of Trafficking in Persons.
The court answered in the affirmative, citing the revised Trafficking in Persons Act of 2021, which defines trafficking as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, or harboring of persons through fraud, deception, or abuse of power for the purpose of exploitation.
The judge noted a critical gap in the defense’s argument. While the defense maintained that the children were never exploited because they were intercepted before leaving Liberia, the court highlighted that three defense witnesses could only account for four of the 14 children. No one was able to inform the court who owned or had legal custody of the remaining minors.
“The argument of the Defense is that the children were never carried out of Liberia and therefore never exploited and therefore never trafficked,” the ruling stated. “Notwithstanding this argument, they admitted to taking majority of the children from Grand Cape Mount County, transported them to Monrovia, harbored them…”
The prosecution presented a total of five witnesses, including regular witnesses and subpoenaed officials from the Ministry of Gender and Social Protection and the Bureau of Vital Statistics, to build their case against the defendants.
All five defendants had initially pleaded not guilty to the charges. Following the presentation of evidence and cross-examination of witnesses—including a rebuttal witness who testified regarding the signed statements and contact information obtained from the accused—the court found sufficient grounds to rule against them.
