The plight of the 200 kidnapped girls and of the 120,000 children forced out from their education

"A line in the sand"

Whilst I scanned some small 'muse' items sneaking onto my face book I fell upon the news of 200
teenage school girls being kidnapped at night from their dormitories whilst attending school for
exams. It astounded me that firstly any group would have the audacity to take such a great number
as 200 children and secondly that they are being kidnapped solely to take them out of education.
For the first 48hours there seemed to be little international reaction, primarily because the Nigerian
Government denied the high numbers suggesting only a couple dozen had gone missing. But then
the truth began to sink in. An extremist militant religious group laid claim. Their views seemingly are
that girls should not be educated and secondly all western forms of education should be banned,
such as literature and geography and social sciences. Some of us may think that our education
systems in the west are actually often misguided, concentrating on non relevant subjects, such as
media studies and psychology. But to say Maths, Reading and Writing, Home Economics and Human
Geography are anti Islamist, seems a little farfetched, in fact darn right bizarre. But the news didn't
end there, I then discovered that in fact some months before, 120,000 students had in fact been
sent home from school, due to threats and the education systems inability to protect and continue
teaching. 120,000! This is an enormous number to be denied an education. Yes they are alive, but
where, what are they doing? We have now heard that possibly some of the 200 girls are being
forced to marry the kidnappers, which is effectively means a mixture of slavery and rape and
solitude from family , for ever! At the onset I imagined which way this would turn and suggested that
it wouldn't be long before they are being sold off. You don't have to be a genius to have guessed
that. But yet the world simply continues to watch, except for some media coverage which has at
least built a little momentum, due to a slow awakening of the real scale of this atrocity, fronted by
this kidnapping, without which we would never have become aware of the other 120,000 being
denied education, of which i ask how many are being forced, sold or volunteered into slavery and
worse. Once those poor individuals become ensconced into work etc, it will be enormously difficult
to return them to school and then catch up upon their lost schooling. Teachers will have dispersed
and i expect books and classrooms ruined. When the young girl in Pakistan was shot, the world was
outraged. The money and offers flowed. But here, it's not your money that is needed, it's not you
speeches, nor only your face book postings. What is needed is direct action; we need a united
stance, a line drawn in the sand that definitively says this is enough, regardless of religious views,
regardless of internal squabbles or differing concepts of education; these are young innocent
human beings, a year after the Year of the Woman, 200 hundred are being forced into debauchery
and why? because they wanted to learn, better themselves, help feed their families , help their
nation, develop as decent adults contributing to our environment and our world. What we need is
for United Nations representatives to take a stand, deploy 5000 international troops [26 per UN
member state], find the girls, rescue them, arrest and publically put on trial for crimes against
humanity the extremists. Let them have a voice in court, allow us all to try to understand their
reasoning, from which we may learn something, but more importantly allow others who verge on
extremism to realise the fundamental flaws in their argument and vile actions against children and
that this will not be tolerated. If we don't, this type of militancy against education, will spread like a
disease across Africa and beyond. If we do not take a stand now, it will be a clear sign of weakness,
that the rest of the world doesn't actually care, west, east, Arabic and Islam, that the Religious
heads of all faiths don't actually care. That in fact, unless there is oil, gold or real estate at stake the
world has no political willpower to show any teeth. I write this as member of the UN Systems 'Global
Alliance' for Comprehensive School Safety and Disaster Reduction Education. We are strategists
looking at the policy and the holistic approach to sustainable and safe education for all, advocating
that all children, whether boy, girl, physically challenged or poor has a right to an education and
within a safe environment. So I say now, lobby your members of Government, in fact yes do write
your blogs, post on face book, trend on twitter, go viral, demonstrating that the people who vote in
the Politicians do not accept this type of anti humanitarian militancy escalating, that enough is
enough and the line in the sand is being drawn now, not just for the 200 desperate young
frightened girls to be returned to their families and loved ones, but also for the 120,000 to be given
back the opportunity for their education. They are the future of Nigeria, of the region and those
120,000 will definitely contribute to the future of Africa. So please Don't let them be a forgotten and
abandoned generation. Garry de la Pomerai