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Nigerian children traumatized after their abduction need urgent and specialized help to recover from their ordeal, UN experts say.
Their statement comes a day after the release of 279 girls following their recent kidnapping from a school in northwest Zamfara state.
It was the third school kidnapping since December in northern Nigeria by criminal gangs known to demand ransoms. In all three cases, the students have now been released.
“The social inclusion of these children requires the establishment of long-term measures aimed at restoring their physical and psychological well-being,” said the experts.
They cited the mass kidnapping in December from a boys’ boarding school in Kankara, Katsina state, as an example of how things had gone wrong.
“There has still not been an impartial and independent investigation into the kidnappings and specialized rehabilitation of the children after the incident,” they said.
“Due to such incidents, many children have not returned to class and some schools have already closed in border areas for fear of re-emergence. It may mean the end of the education of these children. “
Kidnapping is a widespread criminal enterprise in Nigeria – and occurs almost daily.
UN experts said this was of particular concern with regard to abducted women and girls.
“We are alarmed by reports that an unknown number of women and girls have been abducted in recent years and subjected to domestic servitude, forced labor, sexual slavery through forced marriages, forced pregnancies and unwanted. “
They reminded the Nigerian government that it has international legal obligations to protect the right to life, liberty and security of a person “as well as the obligation to adopt effective measures and policies to prevent exploitation ”.
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