The Zogos of Liberia
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 31 October 2019
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When Miatta was 14 years old, armed rebels stormed into her classroom and forcibly recruited her and her classmates. They were trained to use machine guns and then sent to the front line to fight in Liberia’s devastating civil war.
Nineteen years later, Miatta is what many Liberians would call a Zogo. The Zogos are Liberia’s underclass: jobless, homeless and addicted to drugs. They’re a menace on the streets of the capital, Monrovia, where many make their living by snatching purses and phones from passers-by.
In this Assignment, Lucy Ash follows a projects aiming to rehabilitate hundreds of Liberia’s Zogos – including Miatta.
Producer: Josephine Casserly
(Image: A mural in the Liberian capital called Female Zogos of Monrovia. They are sitting on gravestones because many are homeless and seek refuge in cemeteries. Credit: James Giahyue)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We see locals to be wicked people and bad people because our life is even abreast. This market woman is talking about the people who are jobless, |
| 0:16.0 | homeless and addicted to drugs. Here in Liberia they call them Zogos. Some say their name |
| 0:22.3 | comes from the word zombie because of their often |
| 0:25.0 | vacant expression. I will sit there and I will see Zoko maybe chasing someone |
| 0:31.4 | trying to take something from somebody |
| 0:33.5 | I would talk because of my business |
| 0:35.2 | so you're saying that you're here in the market selling rice |
| 0:39.6 | and you see a lot of crimes being committed in front of you |
| 0:42.4 | by Zologos stealing things. |
| 0:45.0 | You're listening to assignment from Liberia on the BBC World Service and I'm Lucy Ash. |
| 0:51.0 | Zogos are those at the bottom of the pile in this war-ravaged West African country. |
| 0:57.1 | Many fear them. |
| 0:58.1 | And she has to remain silent because she doesn't do so. |
| 1:01.6 | He comes back and retaliates by putting fire on her things. |
| 1:05.0 | That's James Giyayu, a journalist in the capital Monrovia, and our invaluable guide to how things work here. |
| 1:13.0 | Liberians are used to high levels of street crime, |
| 1:16.0 | but we've come to this market in red light |
| 1:18.2 | on the city outskirts because of a recent robbery |
| 1:21.5 | which led to several deaths. |
| 1:23.0 | So the other government took him. |
| 1:25.0 | Then the other man king, the other criminal king and stopped him. |
| 1:27.0 | Yeah, yeah, one, yeah, one, yeah, he gave up. |
... |
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