#BringBackOurGirls: Two years after Nigerian girls kidnapped, majority still missing

Two years after 276 girls were kidnapped from their school in the northeastern Nigerian town of Chibok by the Boko Haram extremist group, the vast majority of them remain missing.

The vanished girls are not the only ones abducted by the militants, never to be seen by their families again.

Amnesty International, a human rights organization, estimates that at least 2,000 other women and girls have been seized by extremists over the last few years. The United Nations Children’s Fund thinks 2.3 million people have been displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency in Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad, with 1.3 million of them children.

“At least 10 times more children than the schoolgirls from Chibok have been abducted,” Laurent Duvillier, spokesman for Unicef in west and central Africa told Paste BN on Thursday.

A video obtained by CNN and released Wednesday appeared to show some of the abducted Chibok girls. The broadcaster said the video, which is believed to have been made in December, was sent to negotiators by Boko Haram as proof that the girls were alive.

Boko Haram kidnapped the children from the Government Girls Secondary School on the night of April 14, 2014. Some escaped but 219 remain missing. The hashtag #BringBackOurGirls gripped the world on social media, but to no avail.

“We don’t know where they (the Chibok girls) are, said Duvillier. “There are many possibilities.”

Theories include that they might have been sold, or have crossed borders into neighboring countries.

“Based on testimonies from other women and girls who were abducted, there’s a high probability they’ve been through some forms of exploitation and abuse — sexual abuse or child labor,” Duvillier added.

Many other women and children have been abducted in the past two years but the world has not paid much attention to their plight, he said. Unicef says boys kidnapped by the militants are forced to attack their own families, and some children are used as suicide bombers.

On the anniversary of their abduction, M.K. Ibrahim, director of Amnesty International Nigeria, called on Nigeria’s government to do more to bring back the girls, protect civilians and ensure that children in northeastern Nigeria can go to school.

“In addition to the Chibok schoolgirls, today we also remember all those abducted, killed and displaced. Two years on, the Chibok girls have come to symbolize all the civilians whose lives have been devastated by Boko Haram,” he said.

“In light of new testimonies, bringing back the girls is not enough. What we see today is many girls and women that were abducted and sexually enslaved,” Duvillier said.

Duvillier said the rejection of survivors by their communities makes them three-time victims – during their abduction, their captivity and when they return home.

“They’re seen as Boko Haram wives, (some with) Boko Haram babies, by their own relatives,” he said. “Now it’s time to close the chapter, bring them home. Accept them. If you reject them, Boko Haram has defeated you. Don’t let them win.”