Where Are “Our Girls”?

December 16, 2017 by Caroline Calandro

They approached in the sweltering night. At a government secondary boarding school in Chibok, 276 girls were tucked in their beds and up late studiously preparing for their upcoming final exams. Sudden yells and gunshots pierced the air, and the girls knew.

They stormed the dormitory armed with AK-47s. Terrified girls were herded under a tree and stuffed at gunpoint into the back of a large truck as they watched flames consume their school, their clothes and their books. Boko Haram would soon call that night a victory, as it brought them leverage and international publicity.

The world knew of Boko Haram, an extremist Islamist group that seeks to establish an Islamic state in Nigeria and expel western influences, but in wake of the kidnapping the Internet brought them sudden explosive recognition. The Nigerian government’s failure to respond expeditiously spurred a grassroots social media campaign under the hashtag “Bring Back Our Girls,” which generated public outcry demanding that the insurgency surrender the girls.

This online movement was successful in spreading global awareness. But beyond inciting upset, there were not many direct tangible gains. Even of the girls who escaped or were freed, their lives are made more difficult because of the time they spent in the enemy’s camp. Certainly good intentions drove the internet campaign, but the lack of long-term positive results forces the uncomfortable question: might it have impelled more harm than good?

Posts by social media activists have been accused of building up a Potemkin village of sorts, a farce despite good intentions. While sharing posts have proven to have the potential for legitimate impact, “clicktivism” can often become isolated to Twitter trends. By nature such fads fade, which can be damaging when human lives are at stake. Beyond this, the fallout of this situation in Nigeria suggests that the sharing of information online without regard for hypothetical consequences can have an extremely undesirable side, as in the case of the “Bring Back Our Girls” movement.

In an interview with The Daily Beast, Fulan Nasrullah, a former member of Boko Haram, said, “the group’s infamous leader first clearly saw the value of the women he’d abducted…after Michelle Obama held up her little sign reading “Bring Back Our Girls.”

This response was an alarming outcome for an effort born of sincere desire to help. According to a PBS News Hour source,  “When the campaign was reaching its height in 2014, Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau was pleased because he “likes to have the United States’ attention.”

Worse still, this August Reuters published written accounts of girls who spent three brutal years in their captivity who say the mass abduction was “the accidental outcome of a botched robbery.” Unsure of what to do with the girls, the militants brought them to Shekau to decide.

It was the international media campaigns that showed them how to use the girls for negotiation, thereby increasing their power. Unthreatened by international pressure, the insurgency capitalized on their control of the girls as an integral component of their media campaign and as a significant bargaining tool with the Nigerian government.

If we fast-forward over three and a half years since that April night of 2014 to today, where are “Our Girls” now? Though much progress has been made militarily and in regards to the hostages, the devastating conflict persists, partly sustained by the power they wield through the hostages they hold.

“Sara,” a girl who was freed, describes a life plagued by the memories of their experiences under the control of Boko Haram in the Sydney Morning Herald. She said members would force them to do awful things to survive, even behead peers identified as rebellious. Even now the returners are unsupported and extremely vulnerable to sexual abuse. Many have been scalded in that manner by their decision to trust in state security after escaping. The girls who manage to escape must hide their identities because the group has posted videos threatening to kill anyone who escapes as well as their families. Ostracized by their local townships, many now are burdened with caring for products of their trauma: babies fathered by their rapists at the Boko Haram camps.

“There’s a lot of fear and hatred toward Boko Haram, and it ends up being directed at those who lived with them, even unwillingly, and they became the targets of hate,” said Kimairis Toogood, senior peacebuilding advisor at International Alert in Nigeria, in an interview with PBS News Hour. “People call the girls “Boko Haram wife” and sometimes harass and beat them.”

The release of these girls appears to have been jeopardized more than aided by well-intentioned social media efforts. The government has been in talks with Boko Haram for a long time. The first 21 girls were released on October 13th, 2016, which was the first relief. According to a statement made by the presidential spokesperson Garba Shehu, this was the result of “negotiations between the administration and the Boko Haram brokered by the International Red Cross and the Swiss government.”

A second group of 82 girls released this past May was another huge triumph but has drawn some suspicion around how the government convinced Shekau to let so many leave all of a sudden.

“A lot of people in Nigeria don’t believe that Boko Haram will simply release those girls after three years in captivity for nothing in return,” says Al-Jazeera’s Idris. “We were told that Boko Haram was trying to negotiate for the release of some of their top commanders in custody of the Nigerian security services. There are also some reports suggesting that they want some ransom to be paid for some of these girls.”

Struggle still plagues the area today. Amnesty International reports that Boko Haram has caused 20,000 deaths, has displaced 2.3 million people and bars one million children from education. The Chibok abduction gained a lot of attention due to its size, but it is a common practice of the group. “About 2,000 girls and boys have been abducted by Boko Haram and used as sex slaves, fighters and even suicide bombers,” according to Amnesty International. Many girls have also been forced to marry members of the insurgency.

113 girls are still missing and Boko Haram continues to feature them in their videos to make threats and demands. Here intentionality and contemplation proves key when media reports release information about delicate situations such as this one. Social media can be an effective tool but campaigns like “Bring Back Our Girls” require extensive prior consideration to avoid an outcome opposite of the intention.

The Internet is not to blame for the abduction or the cruelty of Boko Haram. It can take credit for its role in galvanizing the Nigerian government into taking action. Yet the Chibok girls may be paying for this social media brand of kind thoughtlessness with their lives and safety.

written for University of Connecticut International Reporting class