{"id":67984,"date":"2016-04-14T13:19:00","date_gmt":"2016-04-14T11:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/nigeria-humanitarian-country-team-2-years-on-from-chibok-abductions-huge-numbers-of-women-and-girls-still-at-risk-in-ne-nigeria\/"},"modified":"2016-04-14T13:19:00","modified_gmt":"2016-04-14T11:19:00","slug":"nigeria-humanitarian-country-team-2-years-on-from-chibok-abductions-huge-numbers-of-women-and-girls-still-at-risk-in-ne-nigeria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/nigeria-humanitarian-country-team-2-years-on-from-chibok-abductions-huge-numbers-of-women-and-girls-still-at-risk-in-ne-nigeria\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria Humanitarian Country Team: 2 years on from Chibok abductions, huge numbers of women and girls still at risk in NE Nigeria"},"content":{"rendered":"

GENEVA, Switzerland, April 14, 2016\/APO (African Press Organization)\/ — <\/span><\/p>\n

Two years on from their abduction, the fate of 219 of the Chibok schoolgirls is still unknown, but\u00a0their plight is sadly all too common in the conflict-affected communities of the North-East.<\/p>\n

\u201cHumanitarian agencies are concerned that two years have passed, and still the fate of the Chibok\u00a0girls and the many, many other abductees is unknown,\u201d said the Humanitarian Coordinator for\u00a0Nigeria, Fatma Samoura. At the hands of their captors they have suffered forced recruitment into\u00a0the group, forced marriage, sexual slavery and rape, and have been used to carry bombs.<\/p>\n

\u201cBetween 2,000 – 7,000 women and girls are living in abduction and sex slavery,\u201d said UNICEF\u00a0Country Representative, Jean Gough.<\/p>\n

Women and girls who have escaped Boko Haram have reported undergoing a systematic training\u00a0programme while in captivity, to train them as bombers, according to UNICEF. 85% of the\u00a0suicide attacks by women globally in 2014 were in Nigeria. In May 2015 it was reported that\u00a0children had been used to perpetrate three-quarters of all suicide attacks in Nigeria since 2014.<\/p>\n

Many of the bombers had been brainwashed or coerced.<\/p>\n

As the Nigerian military recaptures territory from Boko Haram, abducted women and girls are\u00a0being recovered. Over and above the horrific trauma of sexual violence these girls experienced\u00a0during their captivity, many are now facing rejection by their families and communities, because\u00a0of their association with Boko Haram. \u201cYou are a Boko Haram wife, don\u2019t come near us!\u201d one\u00a0girl reported being told. Effective rehabilitation for these women and girls is vital, as they rebuild\u00a0their lives.<\/p>\n

Children have suffered disproportionately as a result of the North-East conflict. The Chibok\u00a0abduction was not a one off: in November 2014, 300 children were abducted from a school in\u00a0Damasak, Borno, and are are still missing. A UNICEF report released earlier this week states that\u00a01.3 million children have been displaced by the conflict across the Lake Chad Basin, almost a\u00a0million of whom are in Nigeria. Similarly, Human Rights Watch have reported that 1 million\u00a0children have lost access to education. \u201cThe abducted Chibok girls have become a symbol for\u00a0every girl that has gone missing at the hands of Boko Haram, and every girl who insists on\u00a0practicing her right to education,\u201d attested the Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator for Nigeria,\u00a0Munir Safieldin.<\/p>\n

While the fate of the Chibok girls hangs in the balance, women and girls in 70% of vulnerable\u00a0households in North-East Nigeria still face the risk of sexual and gender-based violence,\u00a0according to a report published in December by UNHCR, the Nigerian National Human Rights\u00a0Commission, Nigerian Red Cross and the State Emergency Management Agencies. More needs\u00a0to be done by the Nigerian Government and the international community to keep them safe from\u00a0the horrors other women and girls have endured. Safe schools are a good start, but safe roads are\u00a0also needed, and safe homes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GENEVA, Switzerland, April 14, 2016\/APO (African Press Organization)\/ — Two years on from their abduction, the fate of 219 of the Chibok schoolgirls is still unknown, but\u00a0their plight is sadly all too common in the conflict-affected communities of the North-East. \u201cHumanitarian agencies are concerned that two years have passed, and still the fate of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[428,4585,830],"class_list":{"0":"post-67984","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-africa-news-2","7":"tag-africa","8":"tag-apo","9":"tag-news","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67984\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}