There are certain experiences in life that are transformative.
My time with Rebecca Samuel, one of the mothers of the 276 Chibok Girls of Nigeria who were abducted by Boko Haram terrorists on April 14, 2014, was one such experience. Although 57 of the abducted girls courageously escaped on their own, 219 remain in the hands of the world's deadliest terror group which brazenly detonates girls as human bombs.
I vividly remember the first day I met Rebecca. It was in the middle of rush hour traffic on the bustling streets of Abuja (Nigeria) in early April. I watched her hastily cross a two-way street in Abuja's business district while perfectly balancing her ten-month old baby on her right hip. She was one of three mothers of the Chibok Girls who had agreed to speak her heartbreaking truth via our photo essay entitled, "Letters to Our Daughters: #HopeEndures."
Initially, there was an awkward moment of silence when our eyes met. I assumed it was because I do not speak much Hausa (her Nigerian dialect). So instead, I endeavored to connect with a smile, but her eyes did not betray the depth of her pain. Instead, she smiled back warmly and graciously agreed to reschedule since it was already late in the day and the sun would soon be setting, making it almost impossible for us to capture the full extent of what I realized was her daily reality.
At the crack of dawn the next morning, I drove to a small village on the outskirts of Abuja where I met Rebecca and her family. Although I knew she was one of the mothers of the still missing Chibok Girls, I did not really know much more than that. In her own context, I immediately felt the weight of a life that had been forced upon her by the Boko Haram insurgency. Herself, her husband and five other children had fled the war in March 2014 and have since been forced to adjust to life on the margins; life on Boko Haram's terms. They were not receiving any financial support from the government of Nigeria and no psycho-social support had been provided to help them cope with the reality that their daughter was in the hands of terrorists who swore allegiance to ISIS in 2015. She was living in the most humble of conditions. The most humble.
As she shared her story, I reflected on the three categories of mothers who are most impacted by Boko Haram's "holy war" against Nigeria: mothers whose children were stolen and/or murdered by Boko Haram; those whose children are actively involved in fighting the war for Boko Haram or for Nigeria; and the women and girls who become mothers as a result of their abduction by Boko Haram. I realized that Rebecca's paralyzing fear, as we approached the second year anniversary of her daughter's abduction, was that in addition to being a mother whose child had been stolen, she potentially fell into at least one other category, while her daughter possibly fell into the third.
Sarah Samuel is Rebecca's oldest daughter. She was abducted when she was 18 and would now be 20 years old. She is a vibrant young woman who loves reading and helping her mother around their home. After her family's forced displacement from the North-East to Central Nigeria in March 2014, Rebecca had made the courageous decision to leave Sarah in boarding school in Chibok because she understood that education was one of the fastest accelerators out of poverty. Sarah planned on attending University after completing her college entrance exams in April 2014. It was to be her way of alleviating some of her mother's tears, I was told.
Her mother explained the unbearable agony of not knowing whether a child is alive or dead. Rebecca told me that some parents have developed high blood pressure. 19 others have died from stress related illnesses.
"If not because of God's grace, we all would have died," Rebecca expressed in her letter to the daughter she has not heard from or seen in two years. She is tormented by the vacillating emotions of both fear and hope.
Had her daughter been declared dead, she would at least have been able to grieve and begin to move forward. But for now, "I've lost everything," she cried.
She cries every day. And then she prays. And then cries again. This is her daily affliction.
It is Mother's Day on Sunday; a day where many mothers are celebrated and mothers celebrate the joy of being blessed with children. Yet, there are at least 219 mothers of war in Nigeria (and thousands more around the world) for whom this day will represent unbearable sadness. Rebecca Samuel will be one of those mothers, because although her five other children force her to stay alive and present, there is a gaping hole in her heart for the one daughter she longs for, 755 days post abduction. It is a hole that sometimes feels all encompassing; a hole that often causes her world to reflect all of its images in black only. Yet, her unwavering #HopeEndures because she believes that one day, God will rescue her daughter.
It was difficult to look Rebecca in the eyes. Now I know why. It was not only because I was welcomed into the abyss of her deepest, potentially life threatening pain but because I knew that I was a part of a world that had failed her. I was part of a world that prioritized sending rockets into space over saving human lives; a world which held up #BringBackOurGirls placards in May 2014 and employed selective outrage in order to conveniently do nothing more. This is a world that values western lives over the lives of nameless African girls who we have infamously branded "hashtag ChibokGirls," as if they are devoid of individual identities. As if they are faceless human beings who could adequately be described by the number "276."
As a Nigerian mother and an activist who has advocated for the rescue and rehabilitation of these girls, that meeting with Rebecca left me questioning. It left me questioning my commitment to speaking truth to power. It left me questioning whether I was as dedicated to demanding peace as the terrorists are to declaring jihad. It left me looking at myself in the mirror and seeing the pained faces of Rebecca and the two other Chibok mothers of war I interviewed, Esther and Martha. It left me hearing their cries in my head even after their faces were no longer visible before me.
I have to do more.
And that is because there is so much more to be done. It is simply unconscionable that two years later, we have no answers for 219 devastated mothers of war. How is it that in 2015, NASA's scientists, by using a wide-field infrared survey explorer, discovered the brightest galaxy on the universe, but yet we cannot collectively locate 219 girls trapped in the clutches of hell? How is it that the rallying cry to #BringBackOurGirls appears to have fallen on deaf ears?
When people ask me what more they can do, I simply ask them, "what more would you do if it were your daughter, your sister or your best friend?" Yes, your compassion and prayers are appreciated, but justice for these mothers of war requires more than just compassion. It requires activism. So on this Mother's Day where many celebrate, remember the bleeding hearts of Chibok. Please ask yourself the foregoing question and then be moved from compassion to action.
To see the complete photo essay, to find out what you can do to help and to support our work with survivors of sex trafficking and rape, please visit www.pathfindersji.org.