“He soon began to threaten me with a knife to
have s*x with him and when I refused, he brought out his gun, warning that he
would kill me if I shouted. Then he began to r*pe me every night… I had
never had s*x 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 a cave…
The experiences of three others who
suffered s*xual 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 s*xually 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.”
Source: Punch
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