Human Rights Watch (HRW) has released a new report detailing how Boko Haram tortured, raped and forcibly converted abducted girls to Islam and also married them off to members of the sect.
The report titled, “Those Terrible Weeks in their Camp - Boko Haram Violence against Women and Girls in North-east Nigeria”, gave a graphic account of how the abducted girls were used to lure members of the Civilian Joint Task Force, also known as the youth vigilante, into ambush and captivity.
HRW revealed that although the April 14, 2014 abduction of 276 girls from a secondary school in Chibok brought the spotlight on the scourge of kidnapping in North-eastern Nigeria, many more girls, women and men, mostly Christians, were also kidnapped.
The report highlighted the harrowing experiences of some of the abducted women and girls, many of whom remain in captivity.
The report stated that members of Boko Haram had committed war crimes for which the International Criminal Court in The Hague should hold them accountable.
The report noted that while much had been written about Boko Haram and the horrific threat it poses, very little is known about the abuses endured by women and girls in captivity.
The report, based on field research, including interviews with victims and witnesses of abduction, documents the abduction of women and girls by Boko Haram, highlighting the harrowing experiences of some of the abducted women and girls.
According to the report, there remain many more women and girls in captivity whose stories have not yet been told.
The report stated: “From June through August 2014, Human Rights Watch interviewed 30 individuals who were abducted by Boko Haram between April 2013 and April 2014, and 16 others who witnessed the abductions.
The report stated: “From June through August 2014, Human Rights Watch interviewed 30 individuals who were abducted by Boko Haram between April 2013 and April 2014, and 16 others who witnessed the abductions.
“The victims, including 12 students of the Chibok school who escaped from Boko Haram custody after they were abducted, provided further details of the abuses they endured.
“The women and girls described how they were abducted from their homes and villages while working on the farms, fetching water, or attending school.
“The victims were held in eight different Boko Haram camps that they believed to be in the 518-square kilometre Sambisa Forest Reserve and around the Gwoza hills for periods ranging from two days to three months.”
According to HRW, some of the victims and analysts it interviewed said women and girls were also being used for tactical reasons, such as to lure security forces for ambushes, force payments of ransoms, or for prisoner exchange deals.The report also described the ease with which Boko Haram insurgents operated in North-east Nigeria unhindered by security agencies.
It stated that witnesses described how abducted married women or those abducted with children were often released when they told Boko Haram they had converted to Islam.
Some of the abducted girls and women worked for Boko Haram as cooks while others cleaned the environment and washed the clothes of the insurgents.
In the camps, they described seeing other women and children — some of them infants and others as old as 65 — but were unable to say whether all of them had also been kidnapped.
They were made to cook, clean and perform household chores.
Some were forced to carry stolen goods seized by the insurgents after attacks.
Some were forced to carry stolen goods seized by the insurgents after attacks.
One of the interviewees said she saw some of the Chibok girls forced to cook and clean for other women and girls who had been chosen for “special treatment” because of their beauty.
The women also talked about rape as well as physical violence, including one who said she had a noose placed around her neck and was threatened with death until she converted to Islam.
One 15-year-old said she complained that she was too young to marry one of the militants but a Boko Haram commander dismissed her concerns, saying his five-year-old daughter got married the previous year.
Other kidnapped girls helped the insurgents to carry arms while fighting raged between the insurgents and security forces.
For instance, a 19-year-old woman who spent three months in the captivity of Boko Haram narrated her ordeal in the hands of her abductors: “I was told to hold the bullets and lie in the grass while they fought. They came to me for extra bullets as the fight continued during the day.
“When security forces arrived at the scene and began to shoot at us, I fell down in fright. The insurgents dragged me along on the ground as they fled back to camp.”
She further explained how she was ordered to kill one of the five captured civilian vigilantes brought to one of the camps of the group.
“I was shaking with horror and couldn’t do it. The camp leader’s wife took the knife and killed him,” she said.
The report said residents of villages and towns ravaged by Boko Haram attacks during which women and girls were abducted complained about inadequate government response to prevent attacks and protect victims.
Some of the victims, in their testimonies, said soldiers appeared to have been overwhelmed either because inadequate number of troops had been deployed to a given town or because they seemed to have run out of ammunition during the course of an attack.
The report said: “Two Chibok residents, including a parent whose two daughters remained in captivity at the time of writing, told HRW that as they tried to escape the town, they saw government soldiers also fleeing.”
The report acknowledged government’s efforts to prosecute Boko Haram members arrested but said that such efforts were grossly inadequate.
It said many victims of abductions and their family members who spoke to the organisation expressed frustration with what they perceived to be lack of investigation and prosecution by government authorities for the crimes committed against them.
Among others, HRW recommended that the Nigerian government enacts legislation to domesticate the International Criminal Court’s Rome Statute, which Nigeria ratified in 2001, including criminalising under Nigerian law genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, consistent with the International Criminal Court’s Rome Statute definitions.
It also recommended that the government should ensure such laws apply retroactively at least until July 2002, the date the Rome Statute entered into force for Nigeria.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Aminu Wali, has said the reported fresh abductions of women and children in Adamawa and Borno States last week will not affect the ongoing negotiations for the cessation of hostilities between the federal government and the terrorist sect.
The ongoing negotiations brokered by the government of Chad are expected to lead to the return of the Chibok schoolgirls who were abducted over six months ago.
Echoing what he said was the position of Boko Haram that the recent abductions were not carried out by the sect, Wali said kidnappings are also being carried out by miscreants and criminals.
He said this while fielding questions from newsmen during a trilateral meeting with the Foreign Ministers of Germany and France in Abuja yesterday, where he promised that efforts were being made to rescue or bring back all those that have been kidnapped.
The minister added that there was suspicion that the recent abductions might also have been carried out by some dissidents in Boko Haram who do not want the ceasefire.
“This is a denial from Boko Haram that we have been talking to… But we also suspect that maybe some dissidents of the main Boko Haram body would have probably done that to break the ceasefire, but certainly this is not something that would threaten the negotiations that are going on, and we would make efforts to bring back those that have been kidnapped.
“This is a denial from Boko Haram that we have been talking to… But we also suspect that maybe some dissidents of the main Boko Haram body would have probably done that to break the ceasefire, but certainly this is not something that would threaten the negotiations that are going on, and we would make efforts to bring back those that have been kidnapped.
“Yes there is a ceasefire agreement and negotiations are still going on for a fact. We expect a lot of progress to be made and soon we would announce exactly where we are. But of course when negotiations are going on, it will be pretty delicate for us to start making pronouncements until we are sure of what we have been able to achieve in the process,” he explained.
In his remarks, the German Foreign Minister, Dr. Frank Walter Steinmeier, said France and Germany are in support of any effort that is currently being made to reach a ceasefire with the terrorist sect to ensure the release of the Chibok girls.
He disclosed that Germany was also providing support for Nigeria on border control to ensure that Boko Haram members do not sneak into neighbouring countries.
“As far as the abduction of a German national in Northern Nigeria, there is no new information on that case,” Steinmeier said.
He also announced that the European Union was committing 35 million euros towards helping Nigeria achieve free and fair elections in 2015.
The Foreign Minister of France, Mr. Laurent Fabius, expressed confidence that Nigeria’s upcoming general election would be a good example to the rest of Africa, following a visit to the headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
He disclosed that a Franco-German initiative in Abuja would be put as a proposal to the European Union for the creation of “white helmets” who will help “Europe and others” in humanitarian activities to mitigate the effects of natural disasters.
On Nigeria’s containment of the Ebola virus, both ministers congratulated the country on its effort to fight the disease. They however called for more collaboration to fight the disease, as no nation is free of the virus as long as it exists in any other country, they said.
In their meeting with INEC, both European foreign ministers also called on the federal government to ensure that insurgency in the country is brought to an end before next year’s elections.
They observed that the continued insurgency in the North-east would pose an enormous challenge to INEC in the conduct of the elections.
The two foreign ministers said they were in the country because of the importance of Nigeria to the world, adding that the visit to Nigeria and INEC in particular would afford them the opportunity to get first hand information by interacting with civil society groups, government and INEC on the challenges of the 2015 polls.
Specifically, Fabius urged INEC to defend Nigeria and Africa's image by conducting credible elections in 2015.
According to him, “We have come because of the importance of Nigeria to the world. It is better we have direct contact with civil society groups, government and INEC which has a great responsibility in respect of the next general election where we elect new leaders next year.
”You have enormous and great challenges. We hope that the elections will be free, fair and credible. We want to know your approach to the elections in the North-east. We congratulate your institution for the way you handled the general election in 2011 and more recently the current elections.
“Now that new elections are coming next year, the challenge is tremendous. You have a great responsibility towards Nigeria. The image of Nigeria is at stake and the image of Africa as well.
“We have no doubt that this election will be free, fair and transparent. The European Union (EU) will contribute to it financially and will also dispatch an EU observation mission.”
Source: Thisday News
