Ten years after the abduction of 276 schoolgirls from Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, at least 91 girls remain missing or in captivity, according to a new report by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
The report, released following a confidential fact-finding mission to Nigeria in December 2023, described the situation as “grave and systematic violations” of the rights of women and girls.
CEDAW noted that many survivors continue to face stigma, trauma, and a lack of adequate rehabilitation or educational opportunities. The committee stressed that Nigerian authorities had failed not only to prevent targeted attacks on schools but also to provide adequate care for survivors who returned.
“The abduction of the Chibok girls was not an isolated tragedy but part of a series of mass abductions targeting schools and communities across northern Nigeria,” said Nahla Haidar, Chair of CEDAW.
Since 2014, at least 1,400 students have been kidnapped from schools across the country by Boko Haram and other armed groups, with many victims subjected to forced marriage, sexual violence, trafficking, or used as bargaining tools in prisoner exchanges.
Of the original 276 Chibok girls abducted, 82 escaped on their own, while 103 were freed between 2016 and 2017 through government negotiations. Survivors documented severe mistreatment in captivity, including beatings, starvation, forced religious conversion, and sexual violence.
The UN report also highlighted the social exclusion faced by returnees, many of whom were rejected by their communities or left stranded in internally displaced persons (IDPs) camps without counselling or education.
“Many families were left destitute, having sold all their assets to pay ransoms,” Haidar added, stressing that survivors were “failed twice”—first during the abduction, and again upon their return when proper support systems were absent.
CEDAW urged Nigerian authorities to:
Intensify efforts to rescue the 91 remaining Chibok girls and others still in captivity.
Equip and fund the police to protect schools and vulnerable communities.
Criminalise abduction and marital rape across all 36 states.
Provide sustained rehabilitation, counselling, and education for survivors.
The Committee emphasised that urgent measures were needed to end torture, ill-treatment, and the cycle of neglect faced by survivors.
Hobnob News reports that while the fate of the missing Chibok girls remains uncertain, the UN’s findings call for stronger national action to protect women, girls, and schools from future mass abductions.
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