{"id":1861,"date":"2018-04-17T22:26:53","date_gmt":"2018-04-18T02:26:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=1861"},"modified":"2018-04-17T22:26:53","modified_gmt":"2018-04-18T02:26:53","slug":"boko-haram-survivor-speaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2018\/04\/boko-haram-survivor-speaks.html","title":{"rendered":"A Boko Haram Survivor Speaks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unsurprisingly, Michelle Obama\u2019s \u201chashtag\u201d campaign from four years back failed abysmally to prevail upon the violent jihadist group Boko Haram to return the hundreds of Nigerian school girls who it abducted.<\/p>\n

And while the American media gave audiences the impression that this attack by militant Muslims against young Christian girls was a one-off, the truth is that Boko Haram has been conducting a reign of terror upon Nigeria\u2019s Christian inhabitants for years.\u00a0 When men are included, the total number of victims of Boko Haram is estimated to be at 20,000.<\/em><\/p>\n

Some, like 17 year-old Esther, have managed to return home.<\/p>\n

On a day that started like any other in October of 2015, Esther\u2019s life would forever change. Esther\u2019s mother had already passed away.\u00a0 She lived with her sick father, for whom she cared when she wasn\u2019t in school. \u00a0But the day that Boko Haram besieged her town would be the last day that she would ever see him alive.<\/p>\n

Esther and her father heard the first gunshots. They tried to escape, but the terrorists already had their home surrounded.\u00a0 Open Doors shares what happened next:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rebel militants struck down her [Esther\u2019s] father and left him in a heap on the ground.\u00a0 Esther became a Boko Haram captive.\u00a0 As rebel fighters carried off her and several other young women in their town to their hideout in the Sambisa Forest (where Boko Haram drove thousands of those they kidnapped), she continued to look back, her eyes fixed on her father.\u201d<\/p>\n

To this day, two-and-a-half years later, Esther still doesn\u2019t know for sure whether her father is alive or dead. Yet she suspects the latter.<\/p>\n

For the next year, Esther endured a nightmare that few people can imagine.\u00a0 Deep in the Sambisa Forest, Boko Haram corralled their female victims, to whom they initially promised privileges in exchange for renunciation of the girls\u2019 Christian faith.\u00a0 When this tactic didn\u2019t work, the terrorist thugs resorted to brute violence.<\/p>\n

Esther says that several of the girls could no longer resist.\u00a0 However, she continued to do so.\u00a0 Esther tells Open Doors that she told herself: \u201cIf I perish, I perish. But I will not become a Muslim.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Esther is to be commended for her courage and faith, she paid a price for her resistance.\u00a0 Through tears, she recalls:<\/p>\n

\u201cI cannot recall how many men raped me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Esther states that every time the men returned from an attack, they would take turns raping their captors.\u00a0 She adds that they would \u201cdefile us [.]\u201d<\/p>\n

Regaining her composure, Esther continues, relaying how with each \u201cpassing day, I hated myself more and more.\u201d\u00a0 She \u201cfelt that God had forsaken me,\u201d and \u201cwas so angry with Him [.]\u201d Nevertheless, \u201cI could not get myself to renounce Him\u201d and \u201cfound myself remembering His promise to never leave or forsake me.\u201d<\/p>\n

During her year at the mercies of her tormentors, Esther conceived a child.\u00a0 Given that she was raped by countless men, she remains oblivious to the identity of her child\u2019s father.\u00a0 Esther recalls her immediate thought upon learning that she was pregnant: \u201cI had no idea how on Earth I would ever be able to love this child.\u201d<\/p>\n

In November of 2016, the Nigerian military liberated Esther and her fellow prisoners. Yet upon returning to their communities, where they had hoped to have found support, the girls encountered cruelty of another kind.<\/p>\n

The residents of their villages ostracized and shamed them.<\/p>\n

Esther and the other victims were ridiculed by their own people<\/em> as \u201cBoko Haram women<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Salamatu Umar was only 15 when she was captured by Boko Haram in 2015.\u00a0 She was forced into marriage with one of her captors.\u00a0 Pregnant, she escaped while out collecting firewood for cooking.\u00a0 But when she returned home, her ordeal endured.\u00a0 As she told NPR: \u201cPeople call me \u2018Boko Haram wife\u2019 to my face.\u00a0 They say I am the wife of a killer\u2014so how can I be afraid of Boko Haram?\u00a0 They say my son is a Boko Haram baby.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2016, UNICEF released a report<\/a> on this phenomenon:<\/p>\n

\u201cWomen and girls who have been subjected to sexual violence have been returning to their communities\u2026Some are returning with their children who were born as a result of sexual violence.\u00a0\u00a0 As they return, many face marginalization, discrimination and rejection by family and community members due to social and cultural norms to sexual violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Supposedly, there is fear that the girls had been indoctrinated and radicalized by their Islamic captors, as well as fear that the offspring of these rapists will grow up to become like their fathers.<\/p>\n

According to Esther, her fellow villagers \u201cmocked me because I was pregnant.\u201d\u00a0 And it wasn\u2019t just the members of her community, but her own family who ridiculed and alienated her. \u201cEven my grandparents despised me and called me names.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sobbing, she tells Open Doors: \u201cI felt so lonely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet Esther was further pained by the way in which her daughter Rebecca was treated.\u00a0 \u201cWhat broke my heart even more was that they refused to call my daughter Rebecca.\u00a0 They referred to her only as \u2018Boko.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Esther eventually attended an Open Doors trauma care seminar. The caregiver had Esther and the other attendees who had been victimized by Boko Haram write their burdens on a piece of paper that they were then instructed to pin to a hand-carved wooden cross. \u201cWhen I pinned that piece of paper to the cross, it felt like I was handing over all of my sorrow to God,\u201d Esther recalls. \u201cWhen the trainer later removed all the pieces of paper from the cross and burnt them to ashes, I felt like my sorrow and shame disappeared, never to come back again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Esther continues to seek trauma counseling.\u00a0 Today she and her daughter live with her grandparents and life has become more tolerable. She claims to have forgiven her enemies and expresses confidence that God will exact vengeance against her tormentors on His own terms.<\/p>\n

Neither Michelle Obama nor anyone else associated with the so-called #MeToo movement in the West has uttered a syllable regarding the countless Esthers of the world, young women who have endured, not sexual harassment,<\/em> but sexual brutality and its aftermath<\/em> the likes of which are unimaginable to those of us who have the luxury and privilege of living in the United States of 2018.<\/p>\n

Esther won\u2019t be asked to speak at the Oscars or the Emmys.\u00a0 Nor will she be invited to speak at an American or Western university.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t take a genius to figure out why.<\/p>\n

Esther is a black African Christian and her persecutors are black African Muslims.<\/p>\n

From the vantage of Western leftists, there\u2019s nothing to see here.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unsurprisingly, Michelle Obama\u2019s \u201chashtag\u201d campaign from four years back failed abysmally to prevail upon the violent jihadist group Boko Haram to return the hundreds of Nigerian school girls who it abducted. 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