OSTRACIZATION: The Aftermath of Boko Haram Rape

Today’s post is more or less an update on my previous post SHOULD THE GIRLS IMPREGNATED BY BOKO HARAM KEEP THEIR PREGNANCY? Click the link to read the post if you haven’t http://alocovivavoce.com/2015/11/04/should-the-girls-impregnated-by-boko-haram-keep-the-pregnancy/

I came across a piece of news where one of the girls who was raped and impregnated by Boko Haram was crying out to the public about being ostracized from her community.

She amongst others in the same predicament are suffering double injustice for choosing not to abort the pregnancy despite numerous persuasion for obvious reasons.

Now they are all being stigmatized by their community and are regarded as “spoiled goods” while their babies are being treated as a very public reminder of a cruel and unfair shame.

Even a particular girl who had a baby for Boko Haram by the name Aisha Musa made a statement on the record saying “I am not enjoying that I have a baby from a Boko Haram man,”. But she is resigned and there are moments of tenderness between her and her young child.

She made the statement above with tears in her eyes as she has been living in the crowded Minawao refugee camp in Borno State for seven months. She survives by selling corn meal at the local market.p

What a terrible situation!

While I read her story, as much as I feel a surge of pity for her, I cannot help but wonder if sometime in the near future, this young lady might just transfer all of her aggression on that child of hers.

It is bad enough that the entire community already treats the child as “a very public reminder of a cruel and unfair shame” but my worry is will the mother of the child join that train someday?

To be honest, the chances that she will are very high because given the part of Nigeria she is from, Borno, the fact that she was raped (whether by Boko Haram or not) is already a huge stigma. To couple that with a child and no husband makes it worse and then the child is an offspring of Boko Haram? You have literally just poured petrol on naked flame.

I can imagine how she feels sometimes when she reminisces about her life before she was captured. And how she probably had a suitor who had plans to marry her. Or maybe she wished to go to the university after her secondary school education and make a life for herself.

But all of that is now a thing of the past isn’t it?

My question is “Why does it have to be?”

Click on the link below to continue reading

http://alocovivavoce.com/2015/12/28/ostracization-the-aftermath-of-boko-haram-rape/