Monrovia, Feb. 12 -- It was the end of another long Sunday morning for this grandmother, panning through mud in a stream here trying to find enough specks of gold to feed her eight grandchildren. As she walked into the bush on her way to the site with her youngest grandson, aged three, her mind was on the $L1700 ($US9) she had made that day.

The woman, whom New Narratives is calling by her first initial "E," to protect her identity, says she did not notice that a 24-year-old security guard from the mine site had followed her until he approached.

"He told me, 'I want you,'" she recalls speaking in Liberian English, in an emotional interview. "I told him, 'You and my grandchildren are equal. Don't tell me that thing.' He said, 'Since I'm ...