Nigeria: Schoolgirls Kidnapped in Nigeria Married Off to Their Abductors

[lostinblue 1,989]

Nigeria: Schoolgirls Kidnapped in Nigeria Married Off to Their Abductors - Report

By Maria Caspani, 30 April 2014

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Photo: Isiyaku Ahmed

File photo.

Girls kidnapped by Islamist insurgents in Nigeria earlier this month are being married off to militants in mass weddings, according to a report in the British newspaper the Guardian.

The report said that relatives of some of the girls snatched during a mass abduction from a school in Chibok, a village in Nigeria's Borno state, were informed of the mass weddings by people who have been searching for the girls in the forest and border villages where the girls are believed to be held.

On Sunday, locals told the searchers that they had seen truckloads of girls in the area, the Guardian article said. One farmer recounted how insurgents had fired celebratory gunshot after mass weddings on Saturday and Sunday.

"It's unbearable. Our wives have grown bitter and cry all day. The abduction of our children and the news of them being married off is like hearing of the return of the slave trade," Yakubu Ubalala, whose 17- and 18-year-old daughters Kulu and Maimuna are among the disappeared, is quoted as saying in the article.

Earlier this month, parents of some of the girls told state authorities that they were searching for their daughters in a remote forest, adding that 234 were still missing - a much higher figure than the 129 authorities said had been kidnapped.

The kidnapping of the teenage schoolgirls by Boko Haram, who are fighting for a breakaway Islamic state in northern Nigeria, shocked Africa's most populous country.

The attack also underlined how powerless the military has become at protecting civilians in the areas plagued by the insurgency, despite a state of emergency nearly a year old that was meant to destroy it.

Boko Haram - whose name means "Western education is forbidden" - began abducting girls as a tactic early last year. It is eerily reminiscent of Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army, which abducted thousands of school-aged girls across central Africa to use as forced "wives" for their commanders.

Britain's Channel 4 reported on Tuesday that some of the girls, who mostly came from Christian families, were converted to Islam and married off in neighbouring Cameroon, according to a senior community leader in Chibok.

The girls are "alive but they have been moved from the location to which they were originally taken", a source told Channel 4 and added that a deal to free the girls may be within reach.

who mostly came from Christian families, 1500 years of Islamic slavery still continues

http://allafrica.com/stories/201404301305.html?aa_source=slideout

[Jacque67 7,328]

It's tough being a woman.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

This seems to be a common practice in many counties. For instance, once upon a time in Mexico, sex with an underage female could be forgiven in one of two ways: Either pay a healthy sum to the father, or marry the child.

[B_J 2,752]

It's tough being a woman.

True, but that wasn't the reason this was posted.

[We Keep Receipts 9,238]

This seems to be a common practice in many counties. For instance, once upon a time in Mexico, sex with an underage female could be forgiven in one of two ways: Either pay a healthy sum to the father, or marry the child.

As if this was any other issue, it wouldn't be on the radar, but who am I kidding.

[Jacque67 7,328]

True, but that wasn't the reason this was posted.

I know. Just trying to diffuse a racist posting!

[JohnR! 5,495]

True, but that wasn't the reason this was posted.

It's tough being a woman.

All the same, the truth remains that in virtually every culture, women remain being abused and discriminated against, and oftentimes treated as 2nd class citizens. Regardless of the justification, there is a subset of individuals, in every culture, that deem women as less than able and undeserving of dignity.

You may cite this group of Muslims in Africa who kidnaps women for the purpose of raping and marrying them. You can equally cite other groups of Christians, in Africa, who by mandate of the christian church refuse to practice any form of contraception, resulting in unwanted or unfeasible pregnancies, the spread of HIV and other ailments that will ultimately affect women the worst. Even in America, you have the war on women being carried out by the likes of the Teaparty and other conservatives who still live in the 1950s; not to mention the countless cases of rape and domestic violence and abuse, widely reported in our media.

Pick any country and chances are you will find a group subjugating women in one form or another.

[OnMyWayID 1,489]

Racist posting? I was thinking maybe it could be spun as anti-Muslim at most..

Some cultures could move towards alleviating problems like this by not viewing non-virgins and divorced women as damaged goods. When a womans "virtue" is an end-all be-all to her worth it becomes the method to control her.

yeah yeah I'm captain obvious today.

Edited May 2, 2014 by OnMyWayID

[We Keep Receipts 9,238]

Racist posting? I was thinking maybe it could be spun as anti-Muslim at most..

Some cultures could move towards alleviating problems like this by not viewing non-virgins and divorced women as damaged goods. When a womans "virtue" is an end-all be-all to her worth it becomes the method to control her.

yeah yeah I'm captain obvious today.

If one of those two things can't be found in a story, his range diminishes to pro-gun stories.

[spookyturtle 9,466]

It's tough being a woman.

I thought you were a man?

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

I thought you were a man?

It is multi-Gendered I think that s the cool thing now days

Course I am old now, so I am out of touch

My wife told me when she caught me watching Planet of the Apes again ( the original not the new #######)

Hun it's really true Old people watch the same movies over and over

4 shots of Androgel 1.62 and a Cialis later, I showed her who was old