The schoolgirls of Chibok

There is more than is immediately apparent in the case of the kidnapped schoolgirls of Chibok in Nigeria, although in truth the surface details already encompass such matters as politics, religion, the rights of women and girls, and the puzzling inaction of the Nigerian government.

But the United Nations, for one, says the implications of the terrorist rebel group Boko Haram’s latest shenanigan goes beyond the lives and safety of the abducted girls or their parents’ anxiety and desperation.

For one, the incident could “deter other parents from sending their daughters to school,” says Dr. Nicholas Alipui, a senior official for the United Nations Children’s Fund or Unicef. The group’s threat to sell or forcibly marry off the girls is a “credible” threat that should not be taken lightly, Alipui added.

Boko Haram, which roughly translates to “Western-style education is a sin,” has been waging war for years against the government. Boko Haram says it will install an “Islamist” state in the event of victory, even if President Goodluck Jonathan is himself Muslim.

Already, there have been reports that some of the kidnapped girls have been sent out of Nigeria to be “sold in the market,” as Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau declared in a widely-circulated video. Shekau said the girls were “slaves” who had broken the group’s dictates by seeking an education.

The impact of the kidnapping of Chibok’s girls goes far beyond the borders of the town, or of northeastern Nigeria where it is located, or even through all of Nigeria. Conceivably, parents in other Muslim-dominated countries in Africa or elsewhere could be thinking twice about sending their daughters to school. Especially if getting an education opens their girls and families to threats of violence and exploitation.

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WHAT Boko Haram did to the girls of Chibok was not just a mass kidnapping or pimping in the guise of Islamist virtue. What they unleashed was a war on girls, not just on girls’ education, but on girls’ lives and futures, since without an education, a girl’s life is doomed, circumscribed by her domestic responsibilities, the control and power of her husband and parents (and in-laws), a life spent in hiding and drudgery.

It is also, if you think about it, a war waged on the girls’ families, especially their future children. For as the mother is, so will the children be. Studies have shown that when a mother is educated, the chances of her children going to school and learning skills and knowledge are increased. But when a mother remains uneducated, the family is bound to be mired in poverty and ignorance. Educated mothers mean educated families.

Adam Nossiter, writing in the New York Times from ground zero of the disaster that has elicited the world’s indignation, observes that “to travel the road here—much of it an ungraded dirt track that throws up dense dust clouds— … is to understand how vulnerable this school (where the over 200 girls were taken) was. The road is punctuated by the shells of other schools burned by Boko Haram; the carcasses of cars the military attacked; and empty villages, their buildings also destroyed, whose residents have fled.”

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IN OTHER words, the “war” waged on the girls of Chibok began long before the Boko Haram goons attacked their school last month and marched them on foot through the dirt road and into a nearby forest.

The war began almost from their birth, when poverty, ignorance, isolation and the political and armed struggle between the government and the Islamist rebels constricted their futures. Their kidnapping was but a highlight of this story of neglect and underdevelopment.

One thing struck me while researching the background of the Chibok abduction. Similar stories of self-proclaimed Islamists and freedom fighters, even if they behaved more like bandits, had surfaced before. But these stories had to do with the homegrown Abu Sayyaf and how they raided schools and even hospitals, taking as hostages teachers, nurses, and students, whom they used as human shields and bargaining chips, and also as coerced wives, mistresses and soldiers.

But their numbers never really reached the hundreds that Boko Haram managed to capture. And so they remained largely ignored, even if local newspapers carried their stories for a few days before naturally succumbing to the competing priorities of the news cycle.

Certainly, the Abu Sayyaf’s victims didn’t get the Facebook and Twitter treatment that the girls of Chibok are getting. Even if, we must remind ourselves, despite the trending, and the mention even in show business TV shows, the girls still remain in captivity.

What will it take, indeed, for the girls of Chibok to be set free and returned to their anguished parents and families? And what will it take before we understand that conflict and violence are rooted in poverty and inequality, even if others choose to blame religion or colonial history for the insanity of the moment?

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In more pleasant news, the Catholic faithful in the old town of Pasig are celebrating this month the 100th anniversary of the annual “Paalay” or offering to the “Virgen de las Flores de Pasig” (Virgin of Flowers of Pasig).

Through the auspices of the Young Catholic Social Circle, the people of Pasig are observing not just the centennial of the Maytime festivities but also the episcopal coronation of their patroness.

In his message, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle reminded the faithful that “these rites have provided the young people a way of receiving catechesis on an aspect of their faith: the role of Mary in the mystery of salvation.”