An empty classroom Image: Max Wolfe "May God curse every one of those who has failed to free our girls", these are the words of Enoch Mark, whose daughter and two nieces are missing, along with over 100 students abducted from the Government Girls Secondary School in the Chibok area of the north-eastern state of Borno. The young women were abducted two weeks ago. Two weeks we have known about this. Since I heard about the abduction on the news I have been listening out for it. Call it bad timing, perhaps the media thinks we can only handle one disaster at a time but the story quickly fell to the end of the news, just before the sport. And I didn't say anything. Because I like to post slightly flip articles that tend to cover middle class white girl angst or males encroaching on female space. We're just a small feminist blog. I thought someone else would say something. Because I didn't know what to say.
Finally people began to ask why this story wasn't getting the coverage. Why the front pages weren't plastered with images of the missing girls or their distraught parents. Call me cynical but this strikes me as the kind of story many papers love. Weeping parents and school girls? Don't tell me that doesn't sell newspapers because we know it does.
Janice Turner in The Times (no paywall) imagined a similar incident at Roedean: "What if terrorists broke into Roedean? Men with guns, faces covered, kill security guards, batter down the doors of dormitories where girls preparing to sit their GCSEs are asleep...
"No one knows where they are taken. The police throw up no leads and so the Roedean parents form a ragged search party. They weep and beg and hunt until nightfall but there is no sign of their daughters. A week passes. Still their girls are gone...
In Nigeria's remote northeast province 230 female students at Chibok school are missing, kidnapped by Islamic jihadists Boko Haram. Where then is the live-blogging, the CNN crews, the flower-laying coverage and hourly updates?"
Janice Turner in The Times (no paywall) imagined a similar incident at Roedean: "What if terrorists broke into Roedean? Men with guns, faces covered, kill security guards, batter down the doors of dormitories where girls preparing to sit their GCSEs are asleep...
"No one knows where they are taken. The police throw up no leads and so the Roedean parents form a ragged search party. They weep and beg and hunt until nightfall but there is no sign of their daughters. A week passes. Still their girls are gone...
In Nigeria's remote northeast province 230 female students at Chibok school are missing, kidnapped by Islamic jihadists Boko Haram. Where then is the live-blogging, the CNN crews, the flower-laying coverage and hourly updates?"
| Could it be that we just don't know whether to hope these girls are alive or dead? Or is it that we can't muster up the emotion to care? It's a troubled area. Or is it because Boko Haram have yet to speak?Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan hasn't said much either. | "How long do we have to wait for the Government to help us?...We have been quiet for too long". |
Today protesters are saying 'enough' and are calling for a million woman march in the Nigerian capital. Nkem Ifejika spoke to two women planning to march. The women said:"How long do we have to wait for the Government to help us?...We have been quiet for too long".
We have been quiet for too long. The organisation calling for the march, Women for Peace and Justice, are demanding more resources to go towards finding and releasing the girls. They are publicising it on Twitter using the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. As it happens on the same day the quiet Goodluck Jonathan will also be holding a rally. Which speaks pretty loudly.
The fate of the girls is still shrouded in mystery. The leader of a Chibok elders group Pogo Bitrus has told AFP that he has sources who have told him "From the information we received yesterday from Cameroonian border towns our abducted girls were taken ... into Chad and Cameroon," Once the girls reached Chad and Cameroon the sources say they were sold as brides to Islamist fighters.
There is no way, currently, to verify this story. These girls are aged between 16 and 18. This is beyond being denied just education. And for some reason we don't care, and their Government don't care. We are failing them. And I didn't say anything.
Squeamish Kate
We have been quiet for too long. The organisation calling for the march, Women for Peace and Justice, are demanding more resources to go towards finding and releasing the girls. They are publicising it on Twitter using the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. As it happens on the same day the quiet Goodluck Jonathan will also be holding a rally. Which speaks pretty loudly.
The fate of the girls is still shrouded in mystery. The leader of a Chibok elders group Pogo Bitrus has told AFP that he has sources who have told him "From the information we received yesterday from Cameroonian border towns our abducted girls were taken ... into Chad and Cameroon," Once the girls reached Chad and Cameroon the sources say they were sold as brides to Islamist fighters.
There is no way, currently, to verify this story. These girls are aged between 16 and 18. This is beyond being denied just education. And for some reason we don't care, and their Government don't care. We are failing them. And I didn't say anything.
Squeamish Kate
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