Nairobi, Oct 27 (IANS/EFE) Women and girls, abducted by the Boko Haram terrorist group but who managed to escape, claim the Nigerian government failed to ensure their safety at school and did not provide them with medical attention on their return.
A Human Rights Watch, or HRW, report released Monday, which includes testimonials from some of the more than 200 young women kidnapped from a school in Chibok six months ago, says that those abducted were forced to do hard labour, to marry Boko Haram members, to convert to Islam or were raped in captivity.
Boko Haram has captured more than 500 women and girls since 2009 and has increased the number of kidnappings since 2013, when Nigeria declared a state of emergency in the northern states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe where the group is most active.
The report, titled "Those Terrible Weeks in Their Camp: Boko Haram Violence against Women and Girls in Northeast Nigeria", is based on interviews with dozens of witnesses and victims of kidnappings in the north, including some of the Chibok girls who fled.
The victims' statements suggest that the Nigerian government has not been adequately protecting them.
Specifically, it has not offered them medical care or mental health counselling after regaining their freedom, nor has it ensured safety at school or investigated or prosecuted those who were responsible.
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The radicals have focused their campaign of terror on students and Christians, threatening them with whippings, beatings or death unless they converted to Islam, stopped going to school and wore the Islamic veil.
A 19-year-old student at a high school in Konduga in Borno told HRW how she was captured by gunmen while returning by car from school with five other girls in January.
"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 victim recalled one of the kidnappers saying.
"Boko" is a local word for "Western education" and "haram" means "sin".
The terrorists took her and the other girls into the woods where they remained two days in captivity until they were released after they said they had converted to Islam and pledged not to return to school.
The HRW estimates that since 2009 more than 7,000 civilians have been killed in attacks by Boko Haram in northeastern Nigeria, and more than half of these deaths have occurred in the last year alone.
According to HRW Africa director Daniel Bekele, after the mass abduction in Chibok and the global campaign launched on social media to demand the return of the girls, "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".
Bekele noted that Nigerian authorities should also ensure that the medical, psychological and social needs of the women and girls who have escaped are provided for.
While the federal and state governments in Nigeria have provided funding for 57 students from Chibok who are now free, other victims of Boko Haram have received no help.
The situation in Yobe, Adamawa and Borno is an "armed conflict" to which international humanitarian law should be applied, according to HRW.
The Nigerian Army announced Oct 17 a ceasefire between Nigeria and Boko Haram, which included an agreement to free the remaining captive Chibok girls, but that has not occurred.
--IANS/EFE
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