Christian Post Report – 1
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(Photo: Credit/Afolabi Sotunde)
A woman, who was freed by the Nigerian army from Boko Haram militants in the Sambisa forest, feeds her child at the Malkohi camp
(Photo: Reuters/Afolabi Sotunde)
Women displaced by Boko Haram violence residing at the IDP camp yola, welcome other women and children rescued from Boko Haram in Sambisa forest by Nigeria Military as they arrive at the Internally displaced people’s camp in Yola, Adamawa State, Nigeria, May 2, 20Christian Post Report – 15.
(Photo: Reuters/Afolabi Sotunde)
A woman reflects while feeding her baby at a registration centre in Geidam stadium, Nigeria, May 6, 20Christian Post Report – 15. Niger has evacuated Nigerians living around Lake Chad, military and aid officials told Reuters on Tuesday, as the armies of four west African nations battle to quash the Islamist militants. A six-year insurgency by Boko Haram in Nigeria has seen thousands killed and displaced about Christian Post Report – 1.5 million people in the country. Nigerians who fled to the Nigerian border said they had been called out of their homes, lined up and brutally hurried out with no supplies. Some were picked up in trucks at the border town of Mainé-Soroa and taken to two camps in Geidam in Nigeria’s Yobe state, set up in a primary school and a small stadium. Others walked the whole way or got rides for part of the way.
Dozens of rape survivors recently rescued from Boko Haram’s stronghold in the Sambisa Forest in Borno State, Nigeria, are said to be facing stigma and harassment as they reintegrate into their communities and human rights activists are calling on the Nigerian government to help them.
Last month, 234 women and children were rescued from Islamic Militants in northeast Nigeria and sent to the Malkohi camp outside of Yola and at least 2Christian Post Report – 14 of them are now visibly pregnant. Several of the former hostages recently recalled their nightmarish ordeals which included being repeatedly raped by different men while in captivity. Some were forced to marry their attackers while many are unable to identify the fathers of their unborn babies.
Instead of finding love and support in the communities from which they were abducted, however, the women have discovered that they are now social pariahs.
Christian Post Report – 1.4em; font-size: Christian Post Report – 10pt;”>said she has heard many stories about the the challenges of reintegration. Christian Post Report – 1.4em; font-size: Christian Post Report – 10pt;”>A reported 677 women, most of whom were abducted in the past nine months, have been rescued from the terrorist group during raids by the Nigerian military and human rights activists are calling on the Nigerian government to help them reintegrate into their communities.
“The Nigerian government and the state government has to come up with a comprehensive approach for how to reintegrate these girls and these women back into society,” pastor Laolu Akande, executive director of the Christian Association of Nigerian-Americans, recently told The Christian Post in a phone interview.
He also called on Nigerians to welcome the women and children back into their communities instead of taunting and shunning them.
“There has to be services (psychological, trauma, recovery, medical) to bring them back to the community in a very decent way,” he continued. “We also have a message to the communities to welcome these women back [and] to accept them.”
According to Akande, children of rape surviviors are often born into complex circumstances making them ideal targets for terrorist recruitment.
“It’s a very precarious situation to have somebody raped. Many people can’t decide how they’re going to raise that kind of a child,” he said. “You look at the child and then you remember the evil that was done to you, so [Boko Haram] were hoping that these children, who would be raised of these very nefarious pregnancies, not that anything is wrong with the children, but their plan and their strategy is to raise children that will continue their [evil].”
Gov. Kashim Shettima of Borno, the home state of Boko Haram, recently told government officials he was worried the 2Christian Post Report – 14 pregnant women recently rescued from Boko Haram will abandon the children once they are born.
Christian Post Report – 1.4em; font-size: Christian Post Report – 10pt;”>. “Now, the problem is that these children could go to the streets unattended to; they then lack access to food, healthcare and education. The result is that they could indeed inherit their fathers’ (ideology) somehow.”
Segun reportedly denounced Shettima’s comments as “very unfortunate.”
The United Nations Population Fund is working to help the formerChristian Post
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