Report Examines Children Forcibly Abducted, Raped, and Recruited in Nigeria!

A humanitarian crisis is taking place in Nigeria where a brutal conflict between the militant extremist group Boko Haram, Nigerian security forces, and civilian self-defense militia has been particularly affecting children.

In a report, launched yesterday by the advocacy group Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, author Janine Morna examines how children have been forcibly recruited, abducted, raped, detained, and attacked.

The conflict, which started in 2009, has killed thousands of civilians and displaced an estimated 650,000 people, primarily women and children. In an attempt to curb the increasingly violent outbursts, Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan imposed a state of emergency in the north of the country in May 2013. However, according to Morna, the level of violence and the scale of grave violations against children have worsened since.

Together with a number of Watchlist colleagues, Morna was part of a six-week research mission in Nigeria in the spring of this year. Documenting the violations that occurred between December 2012 and July 2014, Morna and the rest of the team conducted qualitative interviews with 156 people.

"My very first interview was with a woman whose son had lost part of his leg in an explosion, her husband had been killed when Boko Haram gunmen attacked local police barracks, her younger daughter had been abducted while at school, and her youngest son had been at school while the building was attacked," 

Morna told MediaGlobal News in an exclusive interview. "It was overwhelming to see so much suffering within the context of one family."

Since 2009 the parties involved in the conflict have subjected children to forced recruitment, killing and maiming, rape, and forced marriages. Schools are frequently attacked resulting in mass school closures and falling rates of enrollment. The abduction of 200 girls from a school in Chibok briefly made the headlines and prompted some action to make schools safer, but overall most violations against children remain poorly documented, and addressed.

When reporting on the Chibok abduction, much of the media - while highlighting the girls' forced conversion to Islam - translated the conflict into a religious war. The Watchlist report, makes it very clear that although there is a religious element to the conflict, Boko Haram does not discriminate between Muslims and Christians when they attack a town.

"We were able to document attacks on mosques as well as churches," she told MediaGlobal News. "The violence carried out by Boko Haram affects the lives of everyone in the northeast, regardless of their religion."

Schools in this region are increasingly becoming recruitment grounds for children. Both Boko Haram and the Civilian Joint Task Force (Civilian JTF), a term loosely used to describe a number of self-defense groups operating in the area, recruit children for spying and participation in hostilities. Many children are forcibly recruited through abduction, others are provided with monetary compensations, and 'volunteer' to join these groups.

"Boko Haram has a very deliberate policy targeting civilians, specifically children," Morna explained. "The heinous act of abduction is being used to embarrass the government and to destabilize the northeast."

According to respondents interviewed by Watchlist, representatives of the Civilian JFT go to different villages and local chiefs usually allow them to recruit any able bodied individual. 

Boys as young as thirteen are being selected to assist the Civilian JFT in their efforts.

Source: MediaGlobal