A girl (name withheld) who is among the 57 Chibok Schoolgirl who escaped after they were abducted by dreaded Islamic sect, Boko Haram has confirmed that the abductees are being sexually abused by members of the group.
The girl’s confirmation follows rumours in the last two months that the abducted schoolgirls were being subjected to improper sexual activities in Sambisa Forest where they were held in captivity.
The girl, who is about 19 years old, told journalists in Maiduguri that she has been sexually abused even in the few days she spent in Sambisa forest. She made the confirmation after undergoing a two -day psychological counselling organised for the her and 56 others by a Kaduna-based non-governmental organisation, the Interfaith Mediation Centre.
“They are not nice people as they claimed to be; they were doing a lot of bad things to us when we were there…they made me suffer pains on my breasts, I had to be given medication before I got better when I escaped back home.
“Each time I see a man that is not related to me, I feel angry and sometimes scared; I hated myself sometimes because of what I passed through; but I feel relieved after the women in the counselling group talked to us and made me feel I have no problem at all”.
The Chibok schoolgirl said sometimes she would burst into tears when she start to imagine what her mates that are still in captivity are going through by now.
She said, “I fear they should not give in to them and agree to marry them. “Some of them were rough and unkind, they talked to us harshly, while some that pretended to be nice, would say they don’t need to shout to us; they would tell us that we should be calm, that they would not harm us but make us good Muslim women and then marry us to the men we love in the camp.
“They use to offer us plenty of food and sweet things into order to convince us; but at night some others would be harassing us; it was at that point that I and few other girls decided to flee when they asked us to go and fetch water for cooking”.
The Interfaith Mediation Centre, led by Pastor James Woye and Imam Mohammed Ashafa had on Thursday rounded off their counselling exercise for the girls and had since returned to Kaduna.
