WUNRN
NIGERIA - GIRL VICTIMS OF ABDUCTIONS
TELL THEIR STORIES - HORRIFIC ABUSES BY BOKO HARAM - LACK OF GOVERNMENT
PROTECTION
Direct Link to Full 63-Page Human
Rights Watch 2014 Report:
October
27, 2014 - (London) – Women and girls abducted by the Islamist group Boko Haram
are forced to marry, convert, and endure physical and psychological abuse,
forced labor, and rape in captivity, Human Rights Watch said in a report
released today. The group has abducted more than 500 women and girls since
2009, and intensified abductions since May 2013, when Nigeria
imposed a state of emergency in areas where Boko Haram is most active. The
63-page report, “‘Those Terrible Weeks in Their Camp’: Boko Haram
Violence against Women and Girls in Northeast Nigeria,” is based on
interviews with more than 46 witnesses and victims of Boko Haram abductions in
Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa states, including with girls who escaped the April
2014 abduction of 276 girls from Chibok secondary school.
The girls' statements suggest that the Nigerian government has failed to adequately protect women and girls from a myriad of abuses, provide them with effective support and mental health and medical care after captivity, ensure access to safe schools, or investigate and prosecute those responsible for the abuses.
“The Chibok tragedy and #BringBackOurGirls campaign focused much-needed
global attention to the horrific vulnerability of girls in northeastern
Nigeria,” said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights
Watch. “Now the Nigerian government and its allies need to step up their
efforts to put an end to these brutal abductions and provide for the medical,
psychological, and social needs of the women and girls who have managed to
escape.”
In addition to speaking to women and girls who had been abducted, Human Rights
Watch researchers interviewed social workers, members of Nigerian and
international nongovernmental organizations, diplomats, journalists, religious
leaders, and state and federal government officials.
The April 14 abduction of 276 schoolgirls from Chibok, a rural town in Borno
State, was the biggest single incident of abductions by Boko Haram. However,
Boko Haram has abducted numerous other people, both before and since Chibok.
The relative ease with which Boko Haram carried out the Chibok abductions seems
to have emboldened it to step up abductions elsewhere.
Nigerian Chief of Defense Staff Alex Badeh announced on October 17 a ceasefire
agreement between Nigeria and Boko Haram. Hassan Tukur, an aide to
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, reported that there was also an agreement
for the release of the girls who had been taken from Chibok. Coordinator
of the National Information Center, Mike Omeri, however, later said that the
schoolgirls' release was still under negotiation.
While Boko Haram has taken some victims arbitrarily, it seems to target
students and Christians, in particular. The group threatens victims with
whipping, beating, or death unless they convert to Islam, stop attending
school, and wear the veil or hijab. Boko Haram translates roughly from the
Hausa language as “Western education is forbidden” religiously.
A
19-year-old secondary school student in Konduga, Borno State, told Human Rights
Watch that when armed Boko Haram insurgents stopped the vehicle in which she and
five other female students were traveling home from school in January, one of
the insurgents shouted, “Aha! These are the people we are looking for. So you
are the ones with strong heads who insist on attending school when we have said
‘boko’ is ‘haram.’ We will kill you here today.”
The students were held in the insurgents’ camp deep within the
518-square-kilometer Sambisa forest for two days. They were released after they
pretended to be Muslims and pledged never to return to school. The young women
have not returned to school, swelling the already large number of students who
drop out of secondary school in northeast Nigeria. Other women and girls were
abducted from their homes and villages, or while working on their farms,
fetching water, or selling items on the street.
In the wake of the high-profile Chibok abduction, the Federal and state
governments in Nigeria set up funds for the 57 students who escaped Boko Haram,
with support from international agencies and foreign governments. The funds,
however, appear not to have widely benefitted the many other victims of Boko
Haram abuses. None of the other women and girls interviewed by Human Rights
Watch had received or was aware of any government-supported mental health or
medical care. Many fear discussing the trauma they endured.
“The survivors of Boko Haram’s violence should not be shamed and frightened
into silence,” Bekele said. “It is Boko Haram that should be ashamed of the
abuses they commit against women and girls in their extreme interpretation of
religious text.”
Before mid-2013, Boko Haram had abducted a small number of individual women and
girls, either from their homes or the street in the group’s then-stronghold of
Maiduguri, the Borno state capital, or in Damaturu, the capital of Yobe State.
In the cases documented by Human Rights Watch, Boko Haram abducted married
women as punishment for not supporting the group’s ideology, and took unmarried
women and girls as brides after insurgents hastily offered a dowry to the
families, who feared retaliation if they resisted.
After the Nigerian government imposed a state of emergency in May 2013 on
Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe states, Boko Haram began to increasingly target
vulnerable groups, including women, children, students, and residents of rural communities.
The group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, warned that his fighters would retaliate
against the family members of Nigerian security forces, who had arrested and
detained the insurgents’ wives and children. On May 7, 2013, for example,
insurgents seized four women and eight children from a police barrack in Bama,
Borno State.
Human Rights Watch estimates that, since 2009, more than 7,000 civilians have
been killed in hundreds of Boko Haram attacks in northeast Nigeria and the
federal capital, Abuja. At least 4,000 of those deaths occurred between May
2013 and September 2014. Evidence gathered by Human Rights Watch strongly
indicates that the situation in Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa states, especially
Borno State, constitutes an armed conflict to which international humanitarian
law – also known as the laws of war – applies.
Human Rights Watch has previously documented widespread abuses by the Nigerian
security forces in responding to Boko Haram attacks. Since 2009, security
forces have used excessive force, burned homes, physically abused residents,
“disappeared” victims, and extrajudicially killed people suspected of
supporting Boko Haram.
Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that the Nigerian government could have
averted some of Boko Haram’s damage if security forces had acted on information
provided by residents about recent, or even impending, attacks. Security
forces, witnesses said, seemed to be overwhelmed, either because of an
inadequate number of troops or an insufficient supply of ammunition.
Nigerian authorities should urgently provide adequate measures to protect
vulnerable communities, including ensuring children safe schools and the right
to education, and ensuring victims of abduction and other violence access to
medical and mental health services, Human Rights Watch said.
Nigerian authorities should also investigate and prosecute, based on
international fair trial standards, those who committed serious crimes during
the conflict, including Boko Haram, members of the security forces and pro-government
vigilante groups.
“Abuses by Boko Haram and inadequate responses by the government are leaving
many people in northern Nigeria beset by fear and anguish,” Bekele said. “The
government and its allies need to step up their protection, support services,
and prosecutions of abuses on both sides to stop this cycle of terror.”
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