A long way from Nigeria, I feel extreme sympathy for the parents; but it is my nature, perhaps by education to critique with a broad view. This critique is one of those – beyond the immediate.
In contemplating the kidnapped Chibok girls, I recall last Christmas in the village; a stranger who came to buy something in a store close to our compound raped a little girl that was tending the store. I recall the mother’s screams through the night because she was beside herself at what had happened to her daughter. I also recall, my mother mention she heard before the incident, the girl was treated badly by her mother.
It is easy to rally in immediate situations, but what about the long drawn out conflicts? The Democratic Republic of Congo has been in a protracted civil war for over twenty years – young boys are forcibly conscripted to join rebel groups and women are systematically raped. All there is as a response is a band-aid of a UN peacekeeping mission. There is no visible, sounding outcry.
When the girls return, and it is my fervent hope that they will, I implore that the voices do not diminish. In the extreme poverty of Nigeria, especially in the North, will their fathers afford to keep them in school? Will they be married off before they turn fifteen? Will they have their first babies before they are able and will they as a result of this suffer from vesicovirginal fistula (VVF)?
The kidnapping of young girls by terror groups, in my opinion, is an extreme of the already embedded and protracted conflict of poverty and gender that envelops Nigerian society. Millions of girls are kidnapped daily into having to live lives they shouldn’t be destined to live.
When my mother mentioned the fate of the girl before she was raped, I wondered what her fate would be if she was living in a home where she was valued. Would there have been an opportunity for rape? In my contemplations of female violence, I consider it as a question of power. Do women from an early age resolve to withdraw and not confront the cowardly ego of a depraved man?
I am not blaming the victim; but I consider an aspect of rape being the psychological powerlessness of the female to not confront the physical power of the male. Did she try as much as she could to scream at the top of her lungs when she was confronted? Or had she already lost her voice after years of maltreatment?
When the girls return, what becomes of them? What has already become of them in the society in which they live? Are they voiceless? Will they be voiceless? Will they teach their children to be voiceless, and the cycle continues?
Beyond #Bringbackourgirls, we need to also cry out about the kidnapped essence of the female in a society where the female essence is diminished by poverty, patriarchy and violence. For the Nigerian, it will not be about calling on Barack Obama to save your girls. It is about asking what we ourselves can do to bring back our girls.
Adaudo Anyiam-Osigwe is a Associate Editor Pride Nigeria online and Pride Nigeria print edition.