Malawi joins ‘Bring Back Our Girls’ campaign
As countries across the world continue to support Nigeria in the ‘Bring Back Our Girls’ campaign—an initiative to rescue 200 Nigerian girls abducted by Islamist group Boko Haram—government and civil society in the country have joined the mobilisation for immediate release of the girls.
The girls were kidnapped almost two months ago at a girls’ boarding school in Chibok, a town in Nigeria.
Speaking at the campaign launch in Lilongwe yesterday, Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Gender, Mary Shawa, said Malawi is fulfilling its international obligation to protect women and girls by joining the campaign.
“Malawi and Nigeria are in a good relationship. So, if your relatives have a problem you support and grieve with them,” Shawa said.
Reading the UN report on the matter, UN Women resident representative Alice Harding said the ‘horrific’ act demands global outrage and action.
“This requires the whole world to stand up and act. We must send the message loud and clear that no girl can be abducted,” said Harding.
In her remarks, NGO-Gender Coordination Network chairperson Emma Kaliya stressed that releasing prisoners in exchange of the girls, as the group demands, is not the way forward.
Also present at the event was British High Commissioner Michael Nevin who appealed to men to change their mindset as a way of stopping the malpractice.
Malawi’s campaign is focusing on two themes of ‘Bring Back Our Girls’ and ‘Keep Girls in School in Africa and Malawi’.
