The United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, has appealed to incoming President, Muhammadu Buhari, to find ways of protecting women and girls from the violent onslaught of Boko Haram insurgents.
The UN agency decried the increasing rate with which Nigerian women and girls were being used as suicide bombers by Boko Haram, describing the trend as alarming.
According the UNICEF, in a statement issued on Tuesday, the frequency and intensity of the suicide attacks involving women and girls had increased sharply this year, noting that girls and women had been used to detonate bombs or explosive belts at crowded locations such as markets and bus stations.
“As the incoming President, Muhammadu Buhari is expected to be sworn-in this week, UNICEF calls on the Nigerian authorities to place the safety and well-being of all children, especially those affected by the crisis in the North-East, at the centre of the political agenda,” UNICEF said.
Continuing, the agency said more women and children had been used as suicide bombers in the North-East in the first five months of this year than during the whole of last year.
“Children are not instigating these suicide attacks; they are used intentionally by adults in the most horrific way. They are first and foremost victims – not perpetrators,” the UNICEF Representative in Nigeria, Jean Gough, said.
According to UNICEF, since July 2014, nine suicide incidents involving children aged between approximately seven and 17 years, all of them girls, had been reported though it noted that their identities and exact ages had not been verified, as estimates “are based primarily on eyewitness accounts”, adding that an estimated 743,000 children had been displaced by the conflict in the three most affected states in Nigeria with the number of unaccompanied and separated children likely to be as high as 10,000.
“Many children have been separated from their families when they fled the violence, with no one to look after them. Without the protection of their families, these children are at greater risk of exploitation by adults, and this can lead to involvement in criminal or armed group activities”, the group further stated.
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