Boko Haram is an Islamist terrorist group that operates ruthlessly in northeast Nigeria. In addition to committing atrocities such as invading communities, killing innocent people, burning down houses, schools, and places of worship, it has kidnapped dozens of girls of various ages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During captivity, they are forced to spend several hours a day in indoctrination sessions in order to radicalise them against Western\/secular education because they fear that they will learn to think independently and challenge the authority of Islam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The intensity of the programme can be better understood through the testimonies of some of them. This paper presents the stories of 10 girls who managed to escape this horror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We were abducted because of the choice we made: to go to school,” murmured Amina (not her real name*), who was abducted along with 13 other girls on her way home from school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They say that the radicalization sessions were endless; the aim was to erase the memory they had of their classes: the rhymes, the alphabets, and the letters they had learned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some girls were released when they were unable to detonate the bombs that were tied to their waists and turned themselves into the security authorities, while others were released after military incursions into their camps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Upon returning from captivity, many of the girls were traumatized and stigmatized. Even so, some still had the courage to return to Western education. This group of girls persevered in the face of the drama, economic hardship, Islamic extremism, and cultural and gender biases to dare to return to school and get an education in the midst of bleak realities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
*Fictitious names have been used to protect the girls’ identities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Boko Haram is an Islamist terrorist group that operates ruthlessly in northeast Nigeria. In addition to committing atrocities such as invading communities, killing innocent people, burning down houses, schools, and places of worship, it has kidnapped dozens of girls of various ages. During captivity, they are forced to spend several hours a day in indoctrination<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":9990,"menu_order":295,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"edicion":[210],"class_list":["post-10178","finalistas","type-finalistas","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","edicion-210"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n