BEFORE going into my article I wish to deal with three issues

1. Sincere thanks is extended to the government for the assistance ($10,000 Cash Voucher) given to school children’ I however wish to suggest that if possible the government should provide transportation for those children who live in areas where minibus fares are high. (I know of two cases where parents are paying this cost for 6 of their kids). This initiative could also help to enhance the moral standards of our young people since they don’t have to travel in minibuses where in a number of cases lawlessness prevails.

2. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, as the commissioner investigating City Council I had raised the point over and over as well as in my report. The horrible state of the cemetery, it now would be good if businessmen inclusive of parlors construct proper fence around both sides of the cemetery road.

3. Imagine the following: Conversation between a married man and his girlfriend on the side, our divorce rate will increase.

Think about the security implications if all the private conversations between security officials are exposed.

Staff members of an entity discussing their boss believing that is a private conversation many persons will be dismissed if these private conversation are revealed.

I wish to now begin the article

One of the most powerful scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie was the final courtroom scene in “A Time to Kill.” For those who didn’t see the movie, basically a defending lawyer is summing up his arguments in case where his client is on trial for killing some men who brutally raped his daughter.

I’ve been following the case of the more than 200 girls abducted by militant group Boko Haram in Nigeria and I have found myself horrified – imagine if one of the girls kidnapped was my daughter. For those who haven’t heard about the group and its supposed motives behind the kidnapping consider the following:

“The Islamist militants’ name translates to “Western education is a sin” in the local language. The group especially opposes the education of women. Under its version of Sharia law, women should be at home raising children and looking after their husbands, not at school learning to read and write. It has repeatedly targeted places of learning in deadly attacks that have highlighted its fundamental philosophy against education.”

Boko Haram has made it clear that the girls will be sold as ‘wives’ for as little as what works out to about $2,000 in Guyana currency. The story did not end there however. When the seemingly hapless President of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan finally decided – in the face of both local and international – to send in army troops to look for them, the town which the army was briefly based in before moving on was attacked and over 300 people were killed, many of them while they slept. And soon after that, in what was clearly a blatant display of the impunity with which it operated, Boko Haram then again kidnapped another set of girls, less than the original victims, but of considerably younger age.

If there is anything positive about this is that the world seems to have responded to this atrocity. Not only have the United State and Great Britain mobilised forces to go into Nigeria to find and release the abducted girls, but the United Nations Security Council has also released a statement calling for their unconditional release, often a first step before decisive action is taken. Additionally, much of the news coverage has highlighted the story in the context of the similar plight of young girls all over the world, from their being trafficked for sexual exploitation in places like Cambodia, to the fight to prohibit them from having an education in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan.

I can imagine the pain of the mothers who are without the warmth of their daughters next to them. One of the mothers who have stood out in adding their voices to the campaign is US First Lady, Michelle Obama who took over her husband’s scheduled address to the nation to call for the return of the girl, even as she praised the Nigerian mothers who continued to send their girl children to school:

“Many of them may have been hesitant to send their daughters off to school, fearing that harm might come their way. But they took that risk because they believed in their daughters’ promise and wanted to give them every opportunity to succeed.”

Even as I highlight the tragedy of the Boko Haram abductions, I want to take the opportunity to encourage all mothers to cherish their own children, take care of them, and be grateful for the fact that they do not have to face the sort of dangers that children across the world face.

(By Keith Burrowes)