The United Nations has urged Nigeria to slow down on its aborting policy for female victims of Boko Haram, saying that the law should make it easier for women and girls who became pregnant in Boko Haram captivity to access abortions.
Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein told the UN Human Rights council in a special session on Boko Haram, adding that many survivors of these horrific experiences are now pregnant by their rapists and wish to terminate these unwanted pregnancies.
“But in Nigeria, abortion is only legal when the life of the woman is at risk, Zeid said, warning that a lack of access would only add to the horrendous suffering the former captives had been through.
“I strongly urge the most compassionate possible interpretation of the current regulations in Nigeria to include the risk of suicide and risks to mental health for women and young girls who have suffered such appalling cruelty,” he said.
He also called on authorities to help women and girls freed from Boko Haram enslavement, who often face stigmatisation, to reintegrate into their communities.
Zeid accused Boko Haram of a litany of other atrocities in Nigeria and in neighbouring Cameroon, Chad and Niger, including massacres, beheadings, torture, burning people to death in their own houses and forcing children to become soldiers.
He demanded that perpetrators be brought to justice, but also warned that hard-handed tactics by the military and police fighting Boko Haram risked exacerbating the suffering of civilians and increasing support for the militants.
He pointed to reports of “shocking conditions of detention in north-eastern Nigeria, including torture and lack of food or water,” and the lengthy detention of women and children released from Boko Haram captivity, reportedly for screening and rehabilitation.
Zeid referred to the widely criticised case of 84 children, aged seven to 15, detained since last December “in near starvation conditions” after Cameroonian forces raided what was first said to be a Boko Haram training camp, but which witnesses have said is an ordinary Koranic school.
Cameroonian ambassador Anatole Fabien Nkou told the council all 84 children had now been released, and that they had only been held long enough “to establish their level of involvement” in Boko Haram crimes.
