Six years ago, Nigeria has been faced with the ravages from the terrorist group Boko Haram which has claimed the lives of over 20,000 Nigerians, displaced some and also the abduction of the Chibok school girls.
Here is Dada, 14, with her daughter Hussainia, 18 months, was kidnapped and raped at age 12 while a captive of Boko Haram. She is among thousands of abductees in northern Nigeria who have been thrust, untreated, into communities that are not equipped to tend to their wounds. ⠀
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Dada escaped when she was 8 months pregnant. She gave birth on the run and eventually reunited with her mother and sister in Maiduguri, where they share a one-room shack behind a busy roadside market. ⠀
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Going back to Banki, where she was kidnapped, is out of the question, says Dada. It wouldn’t be safe for her daughter. She worries that her neighbors will say Hussainia has "bad blood" because her father was a Boko Haram fighter. "A lot of people think those children are bad and dangerous and wicked," she says. She has heard stories, backed up by UNICEF of similar children being killed by the community and sometimes even family members.⠀
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Dada once dreamed of becoming a schoolteacher in her village. That future is closed, she says. "It used to make me angry when I thought about how he destroyed my life for getting me pregnant," Dada says. "It makes me sick and it turns my head around, and I feel like collapsing." The only thing she can do now, she says, is ensure that Hussainia gets to go to school.
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