Paynesville – A photo of a girl attached to dozens of Facebook posts claiming that the girl in the photo is a 13-year-old who gave birth to a baby at the Methodist Hospital in Ganta, Nimba County.
Report By: Grace Gaie | Local Voices Liberia Fact Checker
The photo was first shared on Facebook by the Liberian Celebrity gossips blog on October 8, 2021. But when LocalVoicesLiberia Fact Checking Desk checked the photo, it found that the information was misleading.
During our search using various online image verification tools, we found that, the photo has been shared on various blogs in Nigeria. Some Ghanaian blogs also shared the photo recently.
One of the searches did show that the photo was first share in 2019 in Malawi. The Nyasa Times, a Malawian newspaper in a news article published in October 2019, reported that police in the southern region of Machinga had arrested the mother of the boy who was responsible for the pregnancy of the girl in the viral photo.
The news article, quoting a Machinga police spokesperson, said the girl was 13 when she was married off by her parents but was 14 when she gave birth to the child seen in the photo with her.
In our quest to further verify the link of the image to Ganta Nimba County, we contacted several residents, journalists, and health workers in Ganta, Nimba County to ascertain whether a teenager fitting the girl’s descriptions in the photo recently gave birth in the county. The result of our inquiry show that no incident of sort occurred in the county recently and that the girl in the photo is not a resident of the county.
Health authorities also stated that “they had no idea” about the incident and it was unlikely that it occurred in Nimba County.
Franklin Doloquay, a journalist based in Ganta City, said he visited the Ganta Methodist Hospital to ascertain the truthfulness of the viral posts, but the administration said there was no such incident that have recently occurred in the county as was being disseminated via Facebook.
Conclsuion
Based on our search, using available online verification tool, and ascertaining details from Nimba County, we didn’t find any link to the claim that the girl in the photo gave birth to child at the Methodist Hospital in Ganta, Nimba County. We, however, found that the incident occurred in Malawi in October 2019.
| CLAIM: | VERDICT: |
| A 13-year-old girl gave birth in Ganta, Nimba County
|
No, claim is misleading. |
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