In Summary: The Deputy Gender Minister for Children and Social Protection claimed that children under 15 years constitute 43% of the country’s population and that 63% of the population are under 25 years. We have checked these claims and found that she is incorrect about the percentage of the population under 15 years and mostly correct about the population under 25 years.
On September 11, Madam Garmai Tokpa, Liberia’s Deputy Minister for Children and Social Protection at the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, claimed that children under the age of 15 constitute 43% and that 63% of the country’s population are people under 25 years.
Madam Tokpa made the claim while describing Liberia’s demographic structure and the need to protect children. She was speaking at the start of the national preparatory dialogue for the first Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children in Monrovia.
The Claim
Her exact words were: “Children under the age of 15 constitute 43% of our population and 63% are under 25”.
Claim #1: Children Under 15 Years constitute 43% of the population
Verdict: Incorrect
Rating Justification
To fact-check these claims, we reached out to the deputy minister through Mr. Webster Cassell, who is the Director of Communication at the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, for her reliance.
Mr. Cassell replied with a link, stating that the Minister relied on a UNICEF 2016 article on Child Protection in Liberia which was shared with her to make the statement.
The article quoted data from Liberia’s 2013 Health and Demography Survey (LHDS) report. However, the LDHS report that she relied on is outdated considering the publication of the 2019/2020 LDHS report in April 2021.
To determine the current statistics of Liberia’s population demography, we then obtained the 2022 national population and housing census report.
Page 42 of the report shows that 2,176,918 constituting 41.5% of the 5.2 million population are under 18 years old. This means 41.5% of Liberia’s total population is between 0 and 17 years old.
Therefore, the deputy minister’s claim that 43% of the country’s population is under 15 years is incorrect. The claim is incorrect because 43% of the population cannot be under 15 years old when the 2022 Census report shows that 41% of the total population is under 18 years. The most recent data supersedes the 2013 UNICEF article she relied on.
Claim #2: 63% of Liberia’s population are people under 25 years old
Verdict: Correct
Rating Justification
To fact-check this claim, we reviewed the 2022 census report but did not find data on the percentage of the population that is under 25 years.
So, we searched and found the UNFPA Liberia 2023 report on adolescents and youth in Liberia. The report states that “the age structure of Liberia’s population is young, with 63% less than 25 years old”.
This means that the deputy minister is correct that 63% of the population is under 25 years.
Conclusion
Based on this fact, we therefore conclude that the claims by the deputy Gender minister for Children and Social Protection that 43% of Liberia’s population is under 15 is incorrect. The LISGIS 2022 census report shows that 41.5% of the population is under 18 years old.
However, she is mostly correct that 63% of the population are people under the age of 25 years. UNFPA Liberia 2023 report states that Liberia has a young population with 63% under 25 years old.
This report is produced with funding from the USAID Media Activity. The funder has No say in the editorial decisions leading to the production of this content