Why we should care about kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls

WE have all heard about the recent event in Nigeria where Boko Haram kidnapped over 200 schoolgirls.

For anyone wondering, The Congregation of the People of Tradition for Proselytism and Jihad, known by its Hausa name Boko Haram, is a militant organisation based in the northeast of Nigeria (where Islamic people are mostly found), north Cameroon and Niger. It was founded by Mohammed Yusuf in 2002 and is solely based on Ilamic ideas and stopping westernisation, for example educating girls.

The group is known for attacking Christians, Muslims and government heads, bombing churches, mosques, schools and police stations, and kidnapping western tourists, but has also assassinated members of the Islamic establishment who have condemned their operations. Violence linked to the Boko Haram insurgency has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths between 2002 and 2013.

So why aren’t we on these people’s cases? Well the Nigerians have known about it for a few weeks but they were under the mindset of what they don’t know won’t hurt them.

Like all terrorist groups, Boko Haram seek attention, so they uploaded footage of their leader saying “We have 200 girls, we will sell them to get married.” Marriage selling over there is basically sex slavery for a poor girl as young as 9 years of age.

This week we saw a video of these girls being taught Islamic ideas and acting in a non-Westernising way.

If the armies of the world go all out, Nigeria’s government will feel the pressure and end up getting in crisis. Boko Haram could end up under siege and like all sieges the whole idea of “kill everyone before we get to them” is also very likely.

If this militant group doesn’t get the attention there will be bloodshed, if they do there could be bloodshed.

These are all risks every part of the world has to take.

For me, personally, the worst part of all this is the fact nobody cared for about two weeks until Boko Haram posted their video. What if they didn’t? It’s crazy to think in 2014 we still detach ourselves from these kinds of experiences.

I feel like we have left these Nigerian girls down and we should be trying our best to do one thing, and that is to #BringBackOurGirls. Tweet it, Facebook it, do whatever; it’s time to get cracking on this. I know if it was your 9-year-old girl, you would do the exact same thing.