Nigeria’s Chibok Girls: U.N. says government must intensify efforts to free remaining girls
The United Nations (U.N.) has called on Nigeria to intensify its efforts to find and free the remaining girls abducted by Boko Haram.
A U.N. panel of experts has been assessing discrimination against women in the West African nation. It’s recommended that the government ensure young women are able to return to school without fear of stigma due to their abduction.
These recommendations for the Nigeria government come from a special panel of 23 United Nations experts. They make up the independent U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, and have spent the last three weeks assessing the situation in eight different countries.
Nigeria though came under scrutiny for its response to recovering girls who have been taken by the militant group Boko Haram. In perhaps the most high profile case, fighters abducted almost 300 girls from their school in Chibok in north-east Nigeria back in 2014.
Around a hundred have already been released and a further 60 girls managed to escape. But around one hundred others remain missing, and are presumed to still be in captivity.
The U.N. Committee recommended that the Nigerian government “intensify its efforts to rescue all women and girls abducted by Boko Haram insurgents.”
In addition, it called for the “rehabilitation and integration into society” for the returned girls, along with providing them and their families with “access to psychosocial services.”
The experts noted that the government must take steps to “combat stigma and social isolation” that rescued girls often face when they return. To do that they recommended the government engage in public awareness-raising and education campaigns. So far, there has been no comments from the Nigerian government.
The U.N. estimates Boko Haram has killed around 20,000 people and forced more than two million others from their homes over the last seven years of fighting in Nigeria’s northeast.
