"Those Terrible Weeks in Their Camp"

Book excerpt: In April 2014, the Islamist group Boko Haram abducted 276 female students from a secondary school in Chibok, Borno State, in Nigeria's northeast. The group has abducted more than 500 women and girls from Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa States since 2009. Based field research in northeast Nigeria and Abuja, the capital city, including interviews with women and girls who escaped abduction or were freed from captivity, social workers, journalists, religious leaders, civil society workers, state and federal government officials, and witnesses of abductions, "Those Weeks in Their Camp" documents how Boko Haram targets women and girls. The report highlights the harrowing experiences of some of the abducted women and girls, many of whom have endured physical and psychological abuse, forced conversions, coerced marriages, forced labor, sexual violence and rape. To ensure accountability, the report calls on Nigerian authorities to investigate and prosecute, based on international fair trial standards, those who committed serious crimes in violation of international law, including Boko Haram, members of the security forces, and pro-government vigilante groups. In addition, the government should provide adequate measures to protect schools and the right to education, and ensure access to medical and mental health services to victims of the abduction and other violence. The government should also ensure that hospitals and clinics treating civilian victims of Boko Haram atrocities are equipped with medical supplies to treat survivors of sexual and gender-based violence. -- back cover.