UN human rights experts on Friday urged Nigeria to increase its efforts to help women and children after they have been freed from captivity by Boko Haram in the country’s conflict-riven northeast.
After a five-day visit to the region, three special rapporteurs said there was an “urgent and pressing need for effective measures to address stigma, ostracism and rejection of women and children” as a result of their captivity.
Boko Haram has used the kidnap of women and young girls as well as the forced conscription of men and boys as a tactic throughout the conflict, which is now in its seventh year.
The most high-profile abduction was of more than 200 girls from their school in the northeastern town of Chibok in April 2014, which caused global outrage.
But human rights groups have said thousands of others have been seized in recent years, forced into marriage with Islamist fighters and subject to physical and psychological abuse. Read full on Vanguard
