Over 200 girls were rounded up at gunpoint and kidnapped from their school in the town of Chibok, Nigeria April 14, 2014. They had just finished their final school exams. Boko Haram’s ideology opposes both so-called western education, and particularly women’s education. Some of the luckier girls escaped as the terrorists attacked village after village in a blaze of gunfire. We cannot accept a world where girls are in danger for going to school. What if these were your daughters?
“I abducted your girls, I will sell them.” This is part of a statement by the leader of Boko Haram, claiming responsibility for the mass kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls, who were mostly between 16 and 18 years old.
On the same day as the kidnappings, a massive bombing by Boko Haram insurgents killed more than 75 commuters hundreds of miles south on the outskirts of the capital.
Girls do not belong to any human being.
Women do not belong to men.
Real men do not buy girls and women.
Real men do not steal girls and women.
Every girl deserves an education without sexual and physical abuse.
Every woman deserves an education without sexual and physical abuse.
Girls are not property.
Women are not property.
Men are not property.
Human trafficking in the USA is the third largest illegal trafficking racket after drugs and arms trafficking.
What some girls and women have to endure to get that education is unthinkable.
Being sold is one of the most grotesque examples of human trafficking.
“We must do everything to ensure that the abducted children are retrieved and rehabilitated and returned to their parents, and the military assured us that they are working on it,” said Kayode Fayemi, of the southern, Christian-majority Ekiti state.
Men and boys are also part of the inhuman reality of human trafficking. Now is the time to stand up for human dignity, human equality, and human compassion worldwide.
Namaste