Has Anyone Noticed That 234 Girls Were Abducted From Their School?
About two weeks ago, hundreds of Nigerian girls were kidnapped from their secondary school, but we've hardly heard a peep about it in U.S. media.
Four of the dozens of girls who were able to escape their kidnappers by jumping out of a truck or hiding in the forest. (AP/Haruna Umar)
About two weeks ago, hundreds of Nigerian girls were kidnapped from their secondary school, but we’ve hardly heard a peep about it in U.S. media. Though schools in Borno, the state where the girls were abducted, have been closed due to militant attacks, the students had returned to take a physics exam. They are thought to have been taken by an Islamic group named Boko Haram, which means “Western education is a sin” or “Western education is forbidden.”
Salon staff writer Mary Elizabeth Williams poignantly asks, “Where are the girls now? And does the rest of the world care about their fate?”
Salon:
On April 14, [the] kidnappers broke into the [Government Girls Secondary School in the Sambisa Forest], killed two guards, and loaded the girls into trucks and drove off. Between 30 and 50 girls are believed to have escaped. The rest of the girls, mostly aged between 16 and 18, remain missing.
Last week, some of kidnapped girls’ parents came forward to say that Boko Haram…have threatened to kill them and their daughters. Reports from the Borno-Yobe People’s Forum say that villagers in the Sambisa Forest have claimed the girls are being taken across the country’s borders and sold into marriage to Boko Haram militants for the U.S. equivalent of $12. On Wednesday, hundreds of demonstrators, mostly female, marched through the rain to protest what they say has been a lack of action on the part of the Nigerian government to find and return the girls. Organizer Hadiza Bala Usman expressed her exasperation to the BBC, saying, “It is not clear why the rescue operation is not making headway considering the fact that there’s a clear idea of the perimeter area where these kids were taken in the first week: to the Sambisa forest.”
But it’s not just the Nigerian government that seems unmoved to action. If you were to look at the front pages of your preferred American news sites over the past 14 days, or to tune in to your favored news broadcasts, you’d likely have seen only passing reference to the story, or none at all. Over 200 teenage girls – stolen, believed sold and raped – and yet the New York Times has devoted minimal attention to it. CNN and the L.A. Times have barely mentioned it in the past week….
—Posted by Natasha Hakimi Zapata
WAIT BEFORE YOU GO...This year, the ground feels uncertain — facts are buried and those in power are working to keep them hidden. Now more than ever, independent journalism must go beneath the surface.
At Truthdig, we don’t just report what's happening — we investigate how and why. We follow the threads others leave behind and uncover the forces shaping our future.
Your tax-deductible donation fuels journalism that asks harder questions and digs where others won’t.
Don’t settle for surface-level coverage.
Unearth what matters. Help dig deeper.
Donate now.
Health & Wellness
Expanding vaccine manufacturing in Africa could address longstanding problems with access to disease control resources.
LGBTQIA+
Countries in Africa have some of the harshest and most discriminatory LGBTQ+ policies in the world.
Global Voices
Zimbabwe’s hydropower collapse is a harbinger of crises to come.
Europe
For the French President, recruiting various African intellectuals turned out to be a key asset in trying to shift the Françafrique narrative, while simultaneously protecting French interests on the continent.
Women
Emboldened by the overturning of Roe v Wade, Western conservative movements are dialling up their Africa campaigns
World
In the Horn of Africa, a climate-fueled food catastrophe looms.
You need to be a supporter to comment.
There are currently no responses to this article.
Be the first to respond.