In the midst of the American media discussing “Scandal” stars starting scandals, racist NBA team owners and the jumpoffs who love them, things that are rarely love and even less Hip Hop and housewives that have never been married…we as the media have been neglecting a story that needs a whole lot of attention.
Now, let’s be clear…even as media people we miss a story or two from time to time. However, this one is huge in it’s importance and for so many of us to have either missed it all together or simply thrown it away as a possible story to tell, is negligent at best and flat out foul at worst.
There are said to be at least 234 girls who were at some point abducted from the dorm rooms of their school in Nigeria. These girls have reportedly been taken by an extremist group that calls itself Boko Haram and their families have been in sheer agony for the last few weeks over not knowing where their children are and if they are alright. They are furious at the Nigerian Government for their lack of protection for the girls in the first place and even angrier that the government has not been able to do anything about bringing their babies back home. But it gets worse…much worse.
Take a look at the video below.
Today it is being reported that the group Boko Haram have been marrying the girls off to various group members and transporting the girls out of the country. If this information is accurate…it makes it even harder to find and recover the missing children.
According to the Washington Times, parents are relaying that their girls are being sold to Boko Haram militants for 2,000 naira or $12 US dollars.
Pogo Bitrus, a Chibok community leader, told BBC News:
“We learned that one of the ‘grooms’ brought his ‘wife’ to a neighboring town in Cameroon and kept her there … It’s a medieval kind of slavery.”
Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau first threatened to treat female hostages as slaves in a video released in May, fueling concerns that the group is adhering to the ancient Islamic belief that women captured during war are sex slaves.
Miss Aliyu said life in in the region has,
“Become nasty, short and brutish. We are living in a state of anarchy.”
According to the AP, Nigeria’s government has come under intense scrutiny since the girls were kidnapped.
Think Progress reports that the seeming lack of effort on the part of President Goodluck Jonathan and the rest of the Nigerian government to find the missing girls has angered Nigerians and international observers alike.
On Wednesday, women from Borno state, home of the secondary school, joined with women from across Nigeria in the capital city, Abuja, to press the government to do more.
Enoch Mark, whose daughter and two nieces were among the kidnapped said,
“May God curse every one of those who has failed to free our girls.”
We don’t know what the next step is going to be in freeing these girls or if it’s even possible to find them all and bring them home at this point. And the fact that this has been going on for a few weeks now…and has gone virtually unreported leads us to ask some painful but necessary questions.
If this had happened in Australia, Austria, Antarctica…anywhere but Africa…would we have known sooner that it was going on?Because while there may be many things that divide our world, there is still something that is a great equalizer. There is a common thread that occurs all over the world that should bond us in empathy for these families and what they are going through. That thing being the understanding of how it feels to be a parent and what it would it would mean if it were your own child out there in the bush with these madmen.
No parent on this planet wants this for their children. We as mothers and fathers should be interested in this story because if it can happen there it can happen anywhere.
The mere thought of having your child taken and sold off into some sort of sex slavery for no more than the price of a movie theatre ticket is appalling and it ought to make the hairs on the backs of all of our necks stand up just at the mere suggestion of it. Our question is…why aren’t more journalists in the mainstream making the suggestion?
Most of us missed this story about these families and their suffering in the midst of all of the crazy foolishness that we report on every day….but why?
We hope that we have not become a mass media that is so addicted to the numbers game that we’ve forgotten to report on things that are actually news. We don’t have to care about a KimYe wedding…but we must care about 234 girls getting abducted from their dorm rooms and possibly sold off into slavery…yes that…we must care about now and always.
READ MORE HOT ENTERTAINMENT COVERAGE ON THEURBANDAILY
Even Worse: Explosive New Racist Audio Of Donald Sterling Released [AUDIO]
LA Clippers Owner Donald Sterling Gives Statement And Denies Being Racist: World Reacts
Pebbles Brings Lawsuit Against Viacom Over TLC Movie
LA Clippers Owner: “Don’t Bring Black People To My Games” [AUDIO]
“Superhead” Karrine Steffans Mentoring Montana Fishburne
Gladiator No More: Columbus Short Fired From Hit Show Scandal
Kenya Moore Says It Was “Disgusting” To Watch Her Own Fight On TV [VIDEO]
Like TheUrbanDaily.com on Facebook to stay updated with the latest entertainment news and original interviews!
<p>Facebook Live Is Loading....</p>