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Tuesday, 28 October 2014
Boko Haram raped, beat us – Abducted girls
He soon began to threaten me with a knife to have sex with him and
when I refused, he brought out his gun, warning
that he would kill me if I shouted.
“Then he began to rape me every night … I had
never had sex before; it was very painful and I
cried bitterly because I was bleeding afterwards.”
These were the words of a 15-year-old girl, who
was abducted by Boko Haram and forcibly
married to one of its commanders in a camp in
the Sambisa Forest, Borno State.
The girl, according to a report by Human Rights
Watch, was abducted in 2013 but she escaped
after four weeks in captivity.
The teenager is one of the five girls that
personally recounted their ordeals in the
publication which was made public on Monday.
She said that after her marriage to the
commander who was in his early 30s, she was
ordered to live with him in cave.
The experiences of three others who suffered
sexual violence were narrated by witnesses in the
63-page HRW report titled, Those Terrible Weeks
in Their Camp: Boko Haram Violence against
Women and Girls in North-East Nigeria.’
The publication provides details of how hundreds
of girls and women aged between 15 and 22 were
being made to suffer other forms of abuses and
used for ambushes.
The HRW said in the report that it spoke to 47
witnesses and victims, including some of the
Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped from their hostel in
April this year.
The group also described how some of the
Christian abductees were ordered to convert to
Islam or be executed.
It claimed that four of the eight sexual assaults it
recorded occurred after the girls and women
were forced to marry Boko Haram combatants.
According to the HRW, before “marriage,” the
commanders appeared to make some efforts to
protect the women and girls from sexual assault.
It said that in two cases, the insurgents took
advantage of the absence of a commander and
sexually abused abductees who had yet to be
“married.”
An 18-year-old victim also described how an
insurgent sexually abused her when she went to
use the bathroom.
She said, “I did not know he followed me when I
walked a short distance away from the tree under
which we slept. He grabbed me from behind,
roughly fondling me while trying to take off his
pants. I screamed in fright and he hurriedly left
me as I continued to shout for help.”
Another woman, who was raped in 2013 in one of
the militants’ camps near Gwoza, described how a
commander’s wife seemed to encourage the
crime.
“I was lying down in the cave pretending to be ill
because I did not want the marriage the
commander planned to conduct for me with
another insurgent on his return from the Sambisa
camp. When the insurgent who had paid my
dowry came in to force himself on me, the
commander’s wife blocked the cave entrance and
watched as the man raped me.”
Another woman aged 19, who was married and
had children, described how she and one other
woman were raped after having been abducted
in April 2014.
She said, “When we arrived at the camp, they left
us under a tree. I managed to sleep. I was
exhausted and afraid. Late in the night, two
insurgents woke me and another woman, saying
their leader wanted to see us.
“We had no choice but to follow them; but as
soon as we moved deep into the bush, one of
them dragged me away, while his partner took
the other woman to another direction.
“I guessed what they had in mind and I began to
cry. I begged him, telling him I was a married
woman. He ignored my pleas, flung me on the
ground, and raped me. I could not tell anyone
what happened, not even my husband.
“I still feel so ashamed and cheated. The other
woman told me she was also raped but vowed
never to speak of it as she was single and
believes that news of her rape would foreclose
her chances of marriage.”
The HRW had previously documented the
widespread abuses carried out by the Nigerian
security forces in responding to the attacks by
Boko Haram.
However, the rights organisation asserted that
few members of the security forces implicated in
“serious violations of humanitarian and human
rights law, including violations against girls and
women, have been prosecuted.”
It advised that “to ensure accountability, Nigerian
authorities should investigate and prosecute,
based on international fair trial standards, those
who committed serious crimes in violation of
national and international laws during the
conflict, including members of Boko Haram,
security forces, and pro-government vigilante
groups.”
The group said that “in addition, the government
should provide adequate measures to protect
schools and the right to education, and ensure
access to medical and mental health services to
victims of abduction and other violence.
“The government should also ensure that
hospitals and clinics treating civilian victims are
equipped with medical supplies to treat survivors
of sexual and gender-based violence."
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