“I want all other children born in Liberia- and the world- to lead full lives free of pain and filled with the blossoms of love, like mine,” writes Mahmud Johnson at the blog for the youth-oriented HIV/AIDS group Global 40 Forum. He is an 18-year old former co-host of the Liberian youth radio show, “Let’s Talk About Sex”, which deals with issues relating to the spread of HIV/AIDS and pregnancy prevention. Liberia is gradually transitioning from the nearly 15 years of intermittent civil war that ended in 2003 and moving towards mainstream development. The barriers that remain are great. Nearly 250,000 people were killed during the war, and several hundred thousand were exiled in neighboring countries or in Europe or the United States. The effects of the war on children are well documented. When the fighting began, different military groups searched for soldiers in the ranks of children. Perhaps as many as 20,000 children, some as young as 6-years-old, were recruited, often forcibly. “They were forced to kill friends and family members including their parents, rape and be raped, serve as sexual slaves and prostitutes, labor, take drugs, engage in cannibalism, torture and pillage communities,” says the report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia. Women and girls also suffered greatly. Liberia’s TRC received nearly 7,000 reported cases of sexual violence. Girls and women aged 15–19 make a majority of those reported cases. Despite seven years of peace, bad news can still cascade out of Liberia like a waterfall. Three out of four Liberians live on less than one dollar a day; only half the country's children attend school; Fifty percent of households in the capital Monrovia are classified as food secure. The economic prognosis remains bleak and repatriating young people – some of them former child soldiers – into the economy continues to cause the government problems. This can be especially troubling because half of Liberia’s population is under 20. On the Ceasefire Liberia blog, a Rising Voices project, Stephen R. Johnson writes: Liberia’s youth face many challenges in gaining an education that delivers them the right set of skills and knowledge to become productive in today’s labor market. As a result, the transition from school to work is more often than not unsuccessful and youth end up either unemployed or underemployed in the rural, suburban and urban informal sectors. Yet, the country and its people are determined to put the past behind them. The country’s economy has been growing and the government is modernizing its infrastructure. Groups like the YMCA have been training ex-combatants for employment or to start their own businesses. However, the continuing economic problems have created a ripple effect in other areas. Poverty has forced many women into making difficult and dangerous decisions regarding their sex life, says Jerry B. Tarbolo Jr, from the Federation of Liberian Youth. He said this combination has helped intensify the HIV/AIDS transmission rate in Liberia’s urban areas. If this continues, the disease will mainly affect the younger generation, he says, which is one of Liberia’s great resources. The connection between economic survival and sexual violence has a legacy in Liberia. A 2008 UNFPA study of women in Liberia’s Lofa County found that during the war, nine out of ten women had lost their livelihoods, 96 percent had lost shelter and nearly 75 percent had lost a relative. More than half of the women were victims of sexual violence, and of those women, half of them reported providing sex for some form of favors. Pauline Wleh, a nurse counselor at a Monrovia-based YMCA Youth Centre, says one thing young Liberians today need is education regarding sexual health. She spoke to a writer for Merlin, an international NGO that builds health services in fragile states. “Years of conflict here disrupted our formal schooling system and broke up health services so that youths today know very little about HIV and AIDS. Because of the lack of knowledge, there is a lot of stigma and misconceptions surrounding AIDS now. Youths are too scared to talk to their parents and there is a lack of accessible information. But they can discretely drop in on me between basketball games or after a trip to the computer lab to ask questions, access services and get advice.” She says some changes in attitudes have become apparent. “In the two years since the centre opened, I have seen thousands of young people but only given 291 HIV tests.