Sunday, May 4, 2014
Video - Nigerian government set up plan to rescue kidnapped schoolgirls
Three weeks after 300 school girls were abducted in Nigeria, the country's President has set up a committee to help secure their release. He has ordered security chiefs to do everything possible to get the girls back - but people are becoming increasingly angry.
Related stories: Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown requests UK military assist in finding kidnapped girls
Some of the 200 kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls sold into marriage
Friday, May 2, 2014
Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown requests UK military assist in finding kidnapped girls
The former prime minister said he had approached the British government to discuss the possibility of military assistance. Asked if he anticipated a positive response, he said: "I think people will want to help, yes."
Stressing the urgency of locating the kidnapped girls, Brown told the Guardian: "The international community must do something to protect these girls. We could provide military help to the Nigerians to track down the whereabouts of the girls before they're dispersed throughout Africa – like air support, for example, if that was thought necessary."
Brown will meet the Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan, in Abuja next week to discuss the abduction. He declined to say whether he planned to travel to the remote and dangerous Borno province in the north of the country, from which the girls were kidnapped on 14 April.
Amid widespread criticism in Nigeria of the government's failure to locate the girls, Brown said his intention was to support Jonathan. "I'm not prepared to criticise the Nigerian government. We're dealing with a group of terrorists who have kidnapped children … The sensible way of dealing with this is to help the Nigerian government to deal with a problem in their own country that is very substantial."
The girls, aged between 16 and 18, were snatched in the middle of the night from dormitories at a school in Chibok. Parents and local activists put the number at 230, of whom more than 40 managed to escape from trucks transporting them into the forest. The rest are still missing.
The provincial government in Borno initially said 129 girls were abducted, of whom 52 escaped. The violent jihadi organisation Boko Haram is believed to be responsible.
Since the abduction, there have been conflicting reports of the girls' fate, including claims that they have been trafficked across the border into Cameroon.
"Two hundred girls have been abducted, kidnapped, taken into a forest area, and their parents don't know whether they are about to be murdered, or used as sex slaves, or about to be trafficked into other countries," said Brown.
Relatives told the Guardian this week that the girls had been forced into marriage. "We have heard from members of the forest community where they took the girls. They said there had been mass marriages and the girls are being shared out as wives among the Boko Haram militants," said Samson Dawah, a retired teacher whose niece Saratu was among those kidnapped.
Nigerian armed forces have been searching the 60,000-sq-km Sambisa forest, but say their efforts are being hampered by tip-offs to the militants.
The incident was not isolated, said Brown: "For years now girls in northern Nigeria have been prevented from going to school by terrorists and by the failure to protect them in safety. We've seen hundreds of girls and boys who've been murdered over recent years."
In his capacity as United Nations special envoy on education, he said, he would be urging the Nigerian government to take measures, with international support, to make schools more accessible and safer.
More than 10 million children in Nigeria did not attend school, Brown said. As well as widespread barriers to children's attendance – including child labour, child marriage, child trafficking and discrimination against girls – he added that in northern Nigeria there was "a persistent campaign to deprive children of the opportunity to go to school as part of the wider aims of Boko Haram".
The jihadi group was responsible for "probably 5,000 deaths" in northern Nigeria in the past five years, "including a very large number of pupils, because a target of Boko Haram is to go into schools to bomb and to burn them". Boko Haram means "western education is a sin".
Children, said Brown, should "not be afraid of having to go to school in the face of terrorism". He added that schools should be protected places, like hospitals, under the auspices of the UN or Red Cross.
Amnesty International believes about 1,500 people have been killed by the group in the past year. On the same day as the Chibok kidnappings, 70 died in a bombing in Abuja.
Several hundred people marched through Abuja on Wednesday, many accusing the government of laxity in finding the girls.
Pogo Bitrus, the leader of the Chibok elders forum, told AFP it was "unbelievable" that the military had not tracked down the girls.
Brown attacked the international media for being slow to report the mass abduction. "I'm absolutely shocked at the failure of the international media to take up this issue – including, for several days, the Guardian." The Guardian first reported the story on 15 April.
Guardian
Related stories: Police open fire at peaceful protest of government inability to rescue kidnapped schoolgirls
Some of the 200 kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls sold into marriage
Video - 19 people killed by car bomb attack in Abuja, Nigeria
A blast on the outskirts of Nigeria's capital Abuja has killed at least a dozen people. The car bomb hit the suburb of Nyanya on Thursday, close to the site of a morning rush hour bomb attack at a bus station on April 14 that killed at least 75 people.
Related stories: Video - Bomb blast in Abuja kills 71
Video - Fatality count in Abuja bomb blast rises to 75
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Police open fire at peaceful protest of government inability to rescue kidnapped schoolgirls
Dozens of armed police officers have attempted to disperse a crowd protesting the abduction of secondary school girls in Chibok, Borno state.
Gunshots were fired by the officers in an attempt to break the protest but the protesters stood their ground.
Some of those who heard the shots first thought it was just teargas, but our reporter and other witnesses who arrived the scene shortly after the shots were fired did not notice any fume to indicate it was teargas.
Some witnesses however say teargas canisters were fired too.There is no report of injury to any of the protesters yet.The crowd are also protesting the hike in the school fees of the Lagos State University, Ojo.Several fully armed police officers have now joined the protesters as they march from CMS bus stop in Lagos Island towards Victoria Island.
Scores of Nigerian women, and a few men, had also protested Wednesday in Abuja to demand the release of over 200 girls kidnapped on April 14 by insurgents believed to be members of the extremist Boko Haram sect.
The girls were kidnapped from the their hostel at the Government Secondary School, Chibok, in Borno State.
The protest began at about 3:15 p.m. at the Unity Fountain in the Abuja city centre, with many of the women wearing red to demonstrate anger and outrage at the abduction of the girls.
The women, including some mothers from the troubled Chibok community, carried banners and placards demanding that the Nigerian government do more to free the girls.
Premium Times
Related story: Some of the 200 kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls sold into marriage
Gunshots were fired by the officers in an attempt to break the protest but the protesters stood their ground.
Some of those who heard the shots first thought it was just teargas, but our reporter and other witnesses who arrived the scene shortly after the shots were fired did not notice any fume to indicate it was teargas.
Some witnesses however say teargas canisters were fired too.There is no report of injury to any of the protesters yet.The crowd are also protesting the hike in the school fees of the Lagos State University, Ojo.Several fully armed police officers have now joined the protesters as they march from CMS bus stop in Lagos Island towards Victoria Island.
Scores of Nigerian women, and a few men, had also protested Wednesday in Abuja to demand the release of over 200 girls kidnapped on April 14 by insurgents believed to be members of the extremist Boko Haram sect.
The girls were kidnapped from the their hostel at the Government Secondary School, Chibok, in Borno State.
The protest began at about 3:15 p.m. at the Unity Fountain in the Abuja city centre, with many of the women wearing red to demonstrate anger and outrage at the abduction of the girls.
The women, including some mothers from the troubled Chibok community, carried banners and placards demanding that the Nigerian government do more to free the girls.
Premium Times
Related story: Some of the 200 kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls sold into marriage
Denmark bans adopting babies from Nigeria
Denmark has suspended adoptions from Nigeria less than a month after Lagos police arrested eight people at a suspected baby factory.
"I have decided to suspend all adoption from Nigeria with immediate effect," Denmark's minister for children tweeted. "We must do everything we can to protect the children and to give the families peace of mind," he said in a separate statement.
The minister, Manu Sareen, said he had taken the decision after the Danish regulator, the National Social Appeals Board, said it was "no longer justifiable to adopt children from the country".
The board said it was difficult to ensure a lawful and ethical adoption process from Nigeria, but added that couples who had been matched with a child would not be affected by the ban. Further information was required from the organisation that helps Danish couples adopt from Nigeria, AC International Child Support, before making a permanent decision, it added.
In March, Nigerian police arrested several people, including eight pregnant women, during a raid on a house in Lagos. The women planned to sell their newborns for $2,000 (£1,200) each, reports suggest.
There have been several raids on supposed Nigerian baby factories since 2011, with more than 100 women discovered during such operations. Investigations by Nigeria's anti-trafficking agency that year revealed that babies were being sold for up to $6,400 each.
Buyers tend to be couples who are unable to conceive, and boys typically fetch a much higher price than girls.
According to the EU, Nigeria is one of the biggest sources of people trafficked into Europe, where victims are often forced into prostitution.
Human trafficking is widespread in west Africa, where children are sometimes bought to work on plantations and in mines and factories, or as domestic help. Others are sold into sexual slavery or, less commonly, sacrificed in magic rituals.
The Guardian
Related stories: Video - Baby trafficking syndicate arrested in Imo state
Another baby factory busted in Nigeria
16 pregnant women freed from baby factory in Nigeria
"I have decided to suspend all adoption from Nigeria with immediate effect," Denmark's minister for children tweeted. "We must do everything we can to protect the children and to give the families peace of mind," he said in a separate statement.
The minister, Manu Sareen, said he had taken the decision after the Danish regulator, the National Social Appeals Board, said it was "no longer justifiable to adopt children from the country".
The board said it was difficult to ensure a lawful and ethical adoption process from Nigeria, but added that couples who had been matched with a child would not be affected by the ban. Further information was required from the organisation that helps Danish couples adopt from Nigeria, AC International Child Support, before making a permanent decision, it added.
In March, Nigerian police arrested several people, including eight pregnant women, during a raid on a house in Lagos. The women planned to sell their newborns for $2,000 (£1,200) each, reports suggest.
There have been several raids on supposed Nigerian baby factories since 2011, with more than 100 women discovered during such operations. Investigations by Nigeria's anti-trafficking agency that year revealed that babies were being sold for up to $6,400 each.
Buyers tend to be couples who are unable to conceive, and boys typically fetch a much higher price than girls.
According to the EU, Nigeria is one of the biggest sources of people trafficked into Europe, where victims are often forced into prostitution.
Human trafficking is widespread in west Africa, where children are sometimes bought to work on plantations and in mines and factories, or as domestic help. Others are sold into sexual slavery or, less commonly, sacrificed in magic rituals.
The Guardian
Related stories: Video - Baby trafficking syndicate arrested in Imo state
Another baby factory busted in Nigeria
16 pregnant women freed from baby factory in Nigeria
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