ISSU supports Bring Back Our Girls
The Irish Second-Level Students’ Union (ISSU) is currently supporting the campaign demanding the safe return of approximately 276 girls who were kidnapped from their school on the night of the 14th April in Chibok, Nigeria. The girls were kidnapped by Boko Haram, an Islamic Jihadist and Takfiri terrorist organisation who are opposed to the “westernisation of Nigeria”.
Boko Haram have already previously targeted schools and have pledged to continue doing so as long as the Nigerian government continue to interfere with traditional Islamic education. This traditional education includes not educating girls, which they have enforced in many Nigerian villages by removing girls from schools and even selling them into the sex industry, an appalling crime which would be tackled immediately in Europe.
The denial of education towards girls is unfortunately still a very real problem in many countries today. Even as countries are progressing in delivering the human right of an education to children, groups such as Boko Haram are creating fear and panic to refute these efforts.
While the problem may be far away geographically, ISSU is standing up for all students’ education worldwide which may be denied due to terrorism. By raising awareness of the situation is Nigeria, ISSU hopes to mobilise students in Ireland to pressure the international community to provide what is necessary to help find and return the girls home safely. ISSU encourages other second-level student unions to do the same, and to show that denying education based on gender is never going to be acceptable in today’s world.
