Princess Modupe Ozolua from the Benin Kingdom, Nigeria stopped by to talk about her efforts to help victims of terrorist attacks. She gave her detailed account of how women are children are suffering at the hands of Boko Haram and what we can do to help.
What is the mental state of the survivors, how hard is it for them to be rehabilitated?
“I cry every time I go out there…I get very emotional. To date, there are men, women and children who don’t know where their families are…. People have witnessed their families get killed, their throats slit from ear to ear. Women who are fleeing and have their babies strapped to their backs, the babies get hit by stray bullets and they have to fling their dead bodies and keep running. There are women who have seen their husbands, and children being killed, when Boko Haram attack the villages, they kill the men first because they are the biggest threat. Their forced to either join or forced to marry. Those that have escaped are so traumatized, they don’t know who to trust, and they feel like the government has failed them. Boko Haram has been in existence since 1992.”
On the current conditions in North Nigeria:
“In the northeast, you have a high unemployment rate, you have religion suppressing the people…Islam is not about restricting girls from going to school. You see so many women as young as 8 years old getting married off to men. We know about so much of that going on because we are doing VVF (Vesicovaginal Fistula) repairs – for free. And it’s highly traumatic, even to me. And the minute they get pregnant, have the VVF, and have the ongoing flow of urine and feces, they get abandoned by those men who are going to the next young child to be jumped on.
You have women who are not encouraged to go to school, the electricity and unemployment issues so they just stay at home and breed kids, and because of the highest rate of reproduction, you have millions of boys sitting around doing nothing…Then you have someone that comes along and says: “you know what, I will give you guns so we can make money, and when you die, you get to heaven”...”
On why her campaign Empower54.org is so important:
They are being offered something we are not offering them…this campaign is so important and I see this as a global issue. So if we do not deal with those terrorists outside, nobody’s safe!
Click here to learn more about Princess Ozolua’s mission and donate here.
