OLUGU UKPAI 

“If your actions don’t live up to your words, you have nothing to say.” – DaShanne Stokes. 

On the night of April 14, 2014, 276 girls were kidnapped at gunpoint from the dormitory of Chibok Government Secondary School, a boarding school for girls in rural Nigerian state of Borno, by Boko Haram terrorists, who believe Western-styled education is a sin. As reported by Aljazeera, “these girls, ages 12 to 17, Christians and Muslims alike, knew the risks of seeking education.” These courageous Nigerian schoolgirls are facing an uncertain future and the possibility that they will be sold to militants as “wives” for $12 apiece and conscripted into child Boko Haram terrorists. While there has been a major international search for the missing people on Malaysian flight MH370, followed by nonstop news coverage, there has been no meaningful search for the even greater number of missing schoolgirls.

Eight years after the US had promised to rescue the girls, 137 of the 276 are still missing. While 57 jumped off the truck shortly after their abduction, 80 were released in exchange for detained Boko Haram commanders following negotiation with the Nigerian government. Between June 12 and 14th, 2022, Hauwa Joseph and Mary Dauda escaped on their own with babies. US ‘super power’ intelligence has not fallen through. For example, US intelligence officers had been analyzing the rolling landscape of vacant desert-like terrain and ordinary villages, hoping to find some hint of the schoolgirls. The CIA kept two agents on payroll in the region, locals the agency considered reliable but who had proven unable to report back any indications of the students’ whereabouts.

Outside the Abuja CIA station, the American rescue effort in Nigeria had been stuttering for eight years since the President had issued the order to “do everything we can” to bring the girls home. U.S. drones had been on flying missions over a huge portion of the Sambisa Forest and beyond. As Parkinson and Hinshaw put it: “The U.S.’s failed efforts to rescue the Chibok girls kidnapped by Boko Haram illustrate the limits of its power.”

What could have limited the power of the self-styled saviour of the world from rescuing these girls? This is coming 33 years after the CRC was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1989 and signed by the US in 1995. Since then, there’s only one country that hasn’t ratified the CRC: US. Ratification of the CRC is part of the answers to ensuring children’s rights are protected and promoted. US ratification of the CRC would benefit the nation’s standing in the world and would help the US increase its role as a positive global force for children. The UNCRC’s 54 articles establish children’s rights and how governments should collaborate to protect them. Article 9 states that children should “not be separated from their parents unless the separation is in their best interest.” Ratification of the CRC would have adequately empowered and boosted the US credibility to better advocate for children abroad, including the Chibok girls. The US lacks an extensive framework to protect children’s rights and unevenly enforces existing laws across jurisdictions. US has recently come under increased scrutiny by the international community for policies such as separating the children of undocumented immigrant families.

The attack in Nigeria is part of a global backlash against girls’ education by extremists. The Pakistani Taliban shot Malala Yousafzai in the head at age 15 because she advocated for girl education. According to UN, every year adults worldwide forcibly recruit over 7,740 children as child soldiers; sexually exploit more than one million children in the global sex trade. With over 66 million girls growing up without education, and studies showing that educating girls improves the quality of life for families and can break cycles of poverty, the world must respond loudly.

Why would the US knowingly make politically-correct statements to save the Chibok girls when they have not ratified the enabling convention? Michelle Obama once boasted: “My husband was directing the US government to do everything possible to help Nigerians bring the girls back.” Now, the wind has blown and the world now knows that the US lacks the credibility and power to rescue the Chibok girls and shouldn’t have raised hopes of the poor girls and their parents only to dash it. After eight years, the parents of the girls are still praying to God for the US to help get their daughters back. If the girls aren’t rescued, no parent will allow their female child to go to school. Parkinson & Hinshaw vividly mocked American position as the Saviour of the Chibok girls in their article titled: “When America couldn’t bring back our girls”. Whiteman was right. Until the US ratifies the CRC, they should keep quiet because they remain a toothless bull dog without the ratification. “If your actions don’t live up to your words, you have nothing to say.” – DaShanne Stokes.