CEO steps down over Liberian abuse scandal

The CEO of a US-backed academy in Liberia has temporarily resigned after a report found that dozens of girls were allegedly raped by an employee. As previously reported in Legalbrief Today, students at the pioneering school were allegedly abused by the charity's co-founder, Macintosh Johnson. Johnson eventually died of AIDS and there are fears that he infected some of his victims who were aged as young as 10. The assaults took place at a school at West Point, a notorious slum in the capital Monrovia. BBC News reports that Katie Meyler, the CEO of More Than Me, announced she would step aside while charity has taken steps to safeguard girls at the school, which is devoted to women's empowerment. A committee of seven Liberian government agencies said it met twice since the scandal broke last week ‘with the aim of taking the appropriate legal actions to protect the children and ensure they are safe’. The institution opened in 2013 to a blaze of publicity, becoming the first of 18 schools that More Than Me opened in the state to empower girls. The charity eventually raised more than $8m in funding.