Stopping the terror
Exactly a year ago this week, 276 Nigerian girls were kidnapped from their school dormitories, loaded into trucks and driven away into captivity. Only 57 managed to escape. The remaining 219 are now living, their captors say, in “marriages” with fighters from the Boko Haram terrorist organization.
A heartfelt campaign to “Bring Back Our Girls” spread around the world. But it turned out to be all words. Now Nigeria’s new president-elect acknowledges he doesn’t know whether the girls can be rescued, and the campaign cry has been changed to a much sadder one: “Never to be forgotten.”
That’s bad enough. It’s far worse that those girls were just the tip of an iceberg of terror and violence perpetrated by 45 groups against women in 19 conflict zones ranging from Syria to the Congo, according to a United Nations report released on Wednesday.
The report is a detailed account of rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization and other forms of sexual violence linked to conflicts that are committed against women and girls — and sometimes boys and men.
It amounts, as the UN terms it, to using sexual violence as a “terror tactic.” And according to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, things may be getting worse.
That’s why it’s imperative that the world focuses attention on recommendations in the report aimed at ending sexual violence as terrorism.
“Our opponents are brutal and relentless, said the UN’s special representative on sexual violence in conflict, Zainab Hawa Bangura. “They are cunning and if we relax for even a moment they may gain the upper hand.”
Among its recommendations, the report urges stronger efforts to strengthen institutional safeguards against violence. In the past year, for example, military and police officers in countries covered by the report have been convicted on charges of conflict-related sexual violence.
It also calls for more women to be involved in peacekeeping and peace building processes, early warning systems, and increased involvement by donor countries in preventing these terror tactics.
Tragically, the world has effectively given up on the missing Nigerian girls. The UN report is a wake-up call to take action to stop the violence against girls and women trapped in other conflicts.