Why we're petitioning the Nigerian High Commissioner to South Africa

Image source: www.realtimesmedia.com

I can't say I don't get it. A plane disappearing with more than two hundred people on board captures the imagination and conjures up images of scenes not unlike Life of Pi or an episode of Lost. It's mystery. It's sexy. More than two hundred girls from Chibok on the other hand... Where? Chibok. Nigeria. Oh.  It's Africa's biggest economy. Okay. I know. It's not so sexy.  Not a lot of mystery to capture our imaginations either:

1. These girls are of reproductive age. The African girl child at the best of times does not have adequate resources for sanitary ware and access to hygienic facilities to manage menstruation with dignity. It is unlikely that these girls are being kept in a pristine environment in the weeks that they've been gone. Things are probably getting really uncomfortable and really messy.
2. Boko Haram is allegedly trafficking them to be sex slaves. At $12 a pop even the most broke of the underworld's paedophilic sociopaths can help himself to some fine pickings.
3. Forced sex is usually unprotected. So we're looking at exposure to some of our regular garden variety STIs such as you know HIV, gonorrhea and of course ye olde syphilis! And because forced sex involves at least one very unwilling partner and because paedophiles are insane it can get very violent leaving victims with a little gem of a gift called fistula. Look it up. It's not pretty.

Violence against women is at epidemic proportions on this continent. The African woman is under attack and in my view the African girl child is the least valued person on Earth. Sign this petition. It's not going to Pretoria with a handful of signatories because the people I know are better than that. We refuse to be on the wrong side of history on this issue i.e. the side that did nothing.

Click here to sign the petition to Nigeria to step up efforts to get those girls back.

Basically, this is about love. This is about leading with love. This is about loving these young ladies and wanting the best for them. It's about putting out the energy of our love into the universe and sending it their way so that if there is a little girl who is curled up in some corner of some forest, shaking with fear and wondering if anyone cares, our love will ignite a spark of hope inside her. Hold on. Someone cares. This too shall pass. You will survive.