The increase in the number of
abductions since mid-2013 appears to mark a change of strategy by Boko Haram.
From 2009 through early 2013, the group did not appear to target women and
girls specifically. Instead, it primarily launched assaults against those it
considered part of an unjust and corrupt system: members of the security
services, politicians, civil servants, and other symbols of authority. By early
2012 schools and students became increasingly targeted for attacks, worsening
already dire education indices in the Northeast, which has the lowest primary
and secondary school net attendance ratio in the country.
From 2009 to early 2013,
according to Human Rights Watch’s research and monitoring of abuses, Boko
Haram abducted individual women and girls from their homes or from the street
during attacks on their communities. These abductions took place most often in Boko
Haram’s then-strongholds of Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, or
Damaturu, the capital of neighboring Yobe State. In most of the documented cases,
married women were abducted as punishment for not supporting the group’s
ideology, while unmarried women and girls were taken as brides after insurgents
hastily offered a dowry to the families, who feared to resist.
The abduction of 276
schoolgirls from in Chibok is the biggest single incident of abduction by Boko
Haram at time of writing. The relative ease with which it carried out the
Chibok abductions appears to have emboldened Boko Haram to carry out more abductions
elsewhere.
Videos released by Boko Haram’s
leaders in January and May 2013 suggest three key motives for the initial
abductions: to retaliate against the government for its alleged detention of
family members, including the wives of the group’s leaders; to punish students
for attending Western schools; and to forcefully convert Christian women and
girls to Islam. Some of the victims and analysts interviewed by Human Rights
Watch have suggested women and girls are also being used for tactical reasons,
such as to lure security forces to an ambush, force payment of a ransom, or for
a prisoner exchange.
Residents of villages and
towns ravaged by Boko Haram attacks during which women and girls were abducted
complained about inadequate government response to prevent attacks and protect
victims, often in imminent danger, and to provide adequate medical and psychological
support for victims.
Many of the victims and
witnesses who spoke to Human Rights Watch recounted instances when the security
forces had been overwhelmed because insufficient troops had been deployed to a
given town or because they appeared to have run out of ammunition during the
course of an attack. Others described how members of their community had
informed authorities about impending attacks, but were met with a feeble
response.
Many of the victims and their
family members expressed the ongoing anguish resulting from their ordeal,
including deep fears of re-abduction, sleeplessness, and frustration for insufficient
support from the government. However, of the victims interviewed, only the Chibok
students who escaped from Boko Haram captivity had received limited counseling
and medical care. None of the other victims of abduction or other violations,
all from desperately poor families, had received or were aware of any
government supported mental health or medical care. The federal and state funds,
set up with support from international agencies and foreign governments in the
wake of the high-profile Chibok abductions, have targeted the escaped Chibok
girls but appear not to have widely benefitted the many other victims of Boko
Haram abuses.
The abuses against women and
girls documented in this report occurred against the backdrop of a dramatic
increase in the pace and intensity of Boko Haram’s attacks against
civilian targets from mid-2013, after the federal government imposed a state of
emergency in Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states. Based on credible media reports
and field investigations, Human Rights Watch estimates that more than 4,000 civilians
have been killed in over 192 attacks since May 2013 in northeast Nigeria and in
the federal capital, Abuja. At least 2,053 civilians were killed by Boko Haram
in the first half of 2014.
Human Rights Watch has
previously documented the widespread abuses carried out by the Nigerian security
forces in responding to the attacks by Boko Haram. Since 2009, security forces
have used excessive force, burned homes, engaged in physical abuse, “disappeared”
victims, and extra-judicially killed those suspected of supporting Boko Haram.
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. 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 law during the conflict, including members
of Boko Haram, security forces, and pro-government vigilante groups. 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.
The international
community should encourage and support transparent investigations and
prosecution of perpetrators of human rights abuses by Boko Haram as well as violations
by government security forces and allied groups, and should assist the Nigerian
government to provide protection for schools as well as physical and mental
health care to all victims of abductions and other violations perpetrated by
Boko Haram.
The Nigerian government and
the international community should ensure that women participate fully in all
national and international efforts to maintain and promote peace and security
in Nigeria. The Nigerian government failed to include women in its delegations
to Paris Summit on Security in Nigeria in May 2013 and the London Ministerial
on security in Nigeria in June 2014. Participants at both meetings committed to
civilian protection and human rights and to the prevention of sexual violence
in conflict. Human Rights Watch urges the Nigerian government to comply with
its National Action Plan for the Implementation of UNSCR 1325 and other related
resolutions in Nigeria, which commits the government to take special measures
to include women at all levels of peace processes.
Human Rights Watch urges Boko
Haram to comply with the principles of international humanitarian and human
rights law and to end immediately the killing, maiming, rape, and abduction of
Nigeria’s civilian population including students, which has suffered
greatly over the past five years.
