How to be a Girl after Boko Haram | Long Read

Violent conflict, environmental disaster and being an adolescent girl in a developing country. Some of the most dangerous experiences in a person’s life, and with long-lasting impact on one’s future prospects. Millions of girls experience all three.

For the past decade, this has been the reality in northeast Nigeria. The oil-rich nation – no longer considered a developing country – comes 16th in the number of teenage pregnancies, with about 111.89 births per 1000 women aged 15-19. The country also has the highest maternal mortality rate in Africa. The figures are worst in the northern parts of the country which, already left behind by the economic growth, has been devastated by the insurgency of the anti-education extremist group Boko Haram and by a food crisis resulting from the violence and a prolonged drought. According to UNFPA, 60 percent of all maternal deaths in the world happen in countries that have been affected by conflict or disaster. This is in addition to the fact that all forms of violence against women and girls increase during disasters and displacement.

The social media campaign #bringbackourgirls momentarily fixed the world’s attention on northern Nigeria after Boko Haram abducted 276 girls from their boarding school in Chikok in April 2014. But during the seven-year uprising, 2.6 million people were driven from their homes, 20,000 were killed and thousands of girls are believed to have been abducted. Men and boys were also murdered or captured – leaving behind adolescent widows. They may not have a hashtag, but there are no girls in northeast Nigeria whose life was not changed by the conflict.

Already less likely to go to school – a 15-year old girl is twice more likely to be married than at school – after the conflict, very few girls have been able to continue their education, their pathway to a financial independence. Many were married off during the years of displacement.

Now on the verge of one of the worst food crisis the world has seen since the second world war, poorer families feel pressured to marry off their daughters at even a younger age for a dowry and to prevent public shame as the girls become easy prey for men who want to take advantage of their vulnerability (including some of the thousands of government soldiers sent to protect the region).

But there has been no victory for Boko Haram or the ideas they represent. This is clear when you visit the region and talk to its people, who want to rebuild their communities. While protecting girls after a crisis is an end in itself, girls must be seen as playing a central role in the development process. Supporting girls in their transition into adulthood helps the country heal and prevents history from becoming the future.

During my last visit to Nigeria, I made stops at Katarko and Dikumari, two towns in Yobe state, about 100 miles from the epicenter of the Boko Haram insurgency. I am an international development consultant working on a UK Government funded programme called the Maternal Newborn and Child Health (MNCH2), which serves  women and girls in six states of northern Nigeria, including these communities in the state of Yobe. While the programme addresses long-term issues in the health system, it has introduced community interventions such as ‘safe spaces’ (SSI) for women and girls and outreaches to provide antenatal care, family planning and immunisation services.

Completely destroyed during the crisis, Katarko is slowly coming back to life as, over the past months, people have been returning home from their two-year exile. The diverse community of Dikumari, where people of different ethnicities and tribes have always lived together, has also been affected and impoverished by the conflict, but is now hosting internally displaced people (IDP).

As the International Day of the Girl on October 11 calls for global attention to the challenges and opportunities girls face during and after crises, I spoke to the girls and young women who told me a lot about themselves, about their lives and their future after the crisis.

Baby steps into empowerment

18-year-old Halimat’s baby has been sick. He was seen at the hospital earlier this week and the fever has now come down. He chews on a corn cob in her mother’s wrap and makes demands for her attention. Afra’s son is less easily satisfied so a friend volunteers to give the 15-year-old mother a little break.

Fridays like this used to be Boko Haram’s operation days, but today Katarko is buzzling. The word has gone around that aid agencies were distributing food. Afra’s gaze follows the people running for the food truck, the long-legged boys on a return trip passing the less agile, slowed down by heavy buckets or age. Suddenly, hi-life music blasts from somewhere.

I have a lot of competition for their attention.

“I was divorced at 12,” Afra tells me, making a face when she talks about the man she had been forced to marry a few months earlier. “I didn’t love him.” As is customary in the Hausa culture when a woman wants a divorce, her family paid the dowry – some 20,000 naira (£40) – back to the husband. Next time Afra was allowed to pick her fiancé. A year later she married a 35-year-old butcher.

She was out of town with her husband when they heard the news about Boko Haram rampaging in the village. They ran away to Kano and didn’t return until a year later.

Halimat lived with her father in Hadejia, near the basin of the Chad Lake, an area that has been severely affected by reduced rain fall of recent years. When her father passed away, Halimat moved to Katarko. Her extended family started making marriage arrangements. Halimat ran away from home and stayed with her uncle, in whom she found an ally, until she was promised not be forced to marry. Like Afra, a year later she married a man she was in love with. “The other one, I didn’t love. But I loved Mohammed. He’s a teacher.”

The teacher would encourage his young bride to get an education, but Halimat – who had never been to school – thought that at 14 she was too old to start studying. Soon she was pregnant with her daughter.

When Boko Haram came, holding her toddler, she and her husband ran three kilometres into the night. Her neighbours got killed.

The following year, life wasn’t easy. The family settled in the neighbouring Bauchi state.

“There wasn’t enough food.”

The internally displaced people were welcomed, but there were no jobs. The family struggled to pay rent. When they came back to Katarko, they found nothing there either, until the donors and NGOs started coming in with services and commodities.

Two thirds of health facilities in the state were destructed. When she got pregnant for the second time, Halimat had had to travel to the state capital Damaturu to access antenatal care, and ended up moving there temporarily. The service is offered free but travelling back and forth cost money that Halimat and her husband didn’t have. She gave birth at home. Even if she could have found transport to the hospital, all movement at night time was restricted by the government security. She was bleeding so much that as soon as the curfew was lifted in the morning, she was rushed to the hospital.

Halimat wants to see more health workers and a hospital closer to the community. In theory, she knows when a child or a pregnant woman should get medical attention. Both Halimat and Afra have learned about danger signs at the Safe Space initiative, which they attend twice a month. While the MNCH2 programme set the groups up three years ago, due to the security situation, in Katarko the group has only been able to run for the last two months.

“We also learn about the importance of spacing pregnancies,” she uses the term more acceptable in northern Nigeria than ‘family planning’. “The baby will have more breast milk and the mum will get a chance to rest.” For these girls, the SSI is already making a difference. “Without it, I, for one would be pregnant again,” Afra says, now cradling her infant again. On cue he wakes up, and lets out a cry.

Hauwa, 18, was born in Maidiguri, the capital of Borno sate. She was four when the family of twelve moved to Dikumari. They had struggled to pay rent. Her father knew people in the village, and there were no restrictions as to where to build a house. He died when Hauwa was six. Her mother moved to Damaturu, where Hauwa started attendings Islamic School, until her mother remarried and they moved back.

Hauwa was very close to her older sister. When her sister moved out to get married, Hauwa even left home to live with her and her brother-in-law. She loved them both, so it came as a huge shock to her when one day he left the family to join Boko Haram. When he got killed in an explosion, Boko Haram came for her sister.

The Nigerian Army has been operating rescue missions and Hauwa’s sister was one of the lucky ones. But when she came back she acted withdrawn. The two sisters no longer had long talks like they used to. Hauwa was let down for the second time, when her sister voluntarily returned for a life with the militants.

The family no longer let themselves worry for their lost daughter. “They just gave up on her.” But the little sister is still praying that she would come back. “Although, I will never trust her again for what she did.” She doubts the community will be as forgiving.

Hauwa had no other option but to get married. She had only finished primary school. Now she learns about food groups and how to take care of a baby at the Safe Space intervention. “I would choose school over marriage. What I’d really like is to be a barrister.” She pauses to attach her baby back to her breast. Her husband is supportive, but not a rich man. “I want the truth and I want to fight corruption.”

Expecting mothers pray for peace, job opportunities and to give birth during the day

Rashida, 17, has had her fifth antenatal care visit. Nigeria, like many low and middle income countries, has struggled to meet the international target of four antenatal visits during pregnancy. Pregnancy is considered a private matter – in a conservative society, embarrassing evidence of a couple’s sex life. A fear of witchcraft is also common.

But Rashida is expecting her first child, and she believes in early care. “And I have abdominal pain and often feel dizzy”. To the question whether she feels nervous, she laughs. “No,” she dismisses. Actually, she wants to have 15 children, two years apart. She says she will make any family planning decisions together with her 20-year-old husband, who she married when they were living in exile in the Potiskum area, a hundred kilometres south from Damaturu. Did she feel anxious about getting married in such circumstances? “It was a high time I get married,” the world-weary teen shrugs off. But the happily-ever-after was shaken by a harsh reality. There wasn’t enough food or jobs. The couple was equally worried about coming back. When they did, they found a ghost town. “It wasn’t like before. Many had died or left.”

Now they make enough to get by from collecting firewood. As the life slowly comes back to normal, she hopes for a better future. “Build schools,” she says without hesitation. She has never gone to one herself, but would really like to have a job. She pauses for a long silence, like something she said needed qualifying. Maybe not a job, but capital. With capital she would start farming and make money out of it. But your children, will they go to school? “Yes,” comes the decisive answer. Every single one of them.

Rebecca, 20, isn’t completely happy with her last antenatal care visit in the make-shift clinic. In a society where men and women occupy different public spaces, it is difficult for a woman to visit a male health worker. Rebecca’s health worker is female, but the clinic doubles as a drug dispensary. Constant traffic of both men and women collecting drugs interrupts the privacy of consultations. Recognising that one unhappy experience can derail the progress made in increasing the demand for antenatal care, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) guidelines have recently shifted away from a mere focus on the number of visits to making each of these a positive one. Overburdened, stressed and undervalued health staff posted in difficult conditions – 80 percent of the health facilities the MNCH2 works in don’t have running water, for example – can make this a challenging goal.

Fortunately, Rebecca trusts her health worker, who she feels she can talk to about this and anything that concerns her about her first pregnancy.

She got married in Damaturu after fleeing Katarko in 2014. She had known her husband-to-be since she was a child and they were in love. When asked how many children she thought she would have she responds, “Not too many. About six.” Like she has given some thought to this before, she tells she would have two to three years between each. She learnt a lot about family planning during one of her antenatal care visits. And what about the things you can’t plan for? “I can handle pressure. I’m a patient person and I will treat my children softly and will not beat them too much.”

The crisis made her drop out from school, but Rebecca wants to be a health worker. Her husband supports the idea, but there is no money. The lack of government funding for health studies isn’t going to solve Nigeria’s shortage of health workers. There is a particular lack of nurses and midwives, especially those who are female, to break one of the main barriers that discourage women from visiting clinics. Rebecca possesses another trait that would make her a fit for the job. “Empathetic,” she describes herself. “I want to help my community.” She believes what the community needs is a 24-hour health service and a hospital. She also wants to see schools, water and food. Jobs. Most people in Katarko are farmers, and farming is seasonal. In addition, people are too scared to return to the fields, where Boko Haram used to hide between the tall crops.

Many young men of her age have joined the terror group. Rebecca feels sad that they don’t have jobs and find purpose in the fighting. “Boys seem to be more prone to jump in.” The alternative is to be at home and do nothing. You just give up. Everyone just gives up.

You haven’t given up. You want to be a health worker.

“It is possible.” Her tone is hopeful rather than speculative.

18-year-old Amira was happy to get married and leave home three years ago. Her round, smooth face lets out a playful smile: “Better than waiting for the family to want to get rid of me and marry me off to whomever!” She is the seventh of ten children. All her older sisters are married so she had learnt a thing or two about what to expect. It was from her sisters that she also found out about antenatal care.

When she missed a period her mother told Amira to visit the clinic, where she was referred to the hospital to confirm she was expecting her first baby. It was happy news: in the three years without a sign of a pregnancy, her husband had already taken a second wife. “I had mixed feelings. I was happy to have someone help me in the house, but her being there also reminded me of my own inability to reproduce.”

“I went to primary school but dropped out on the third grade, because I had to help my parents at the farm.” Out of the family, only her brother has gone to secondary school.

She thinks she will end up with ten children, but would be satisfied with nine. She will make the decision. “If it was up to him, I’d have about thirty!” She clucks her tongue. Life is not easy, especially when you have many mouths to feed, but as long as God’s blessings are measured in the number of children and myths about the harmful effects of contraception prevail, financial pressures are just an unavoidable part of the human condition.

Amira is confident: “Allah zai kawo.” God will provide. She hopes she will get to deliver at hospital. The prospect of delivering at home where there is no skilled support is daunting. There is no 24-hour service, so this may be her only option, if the baby decides to make a debut at night.

Her hope is for her children to go to school. “‘What did you learn today?’ I will ask them.” With her encouragement and prayers she believes they will become doctors and professionals.

Health workers healing the scars in the community

The destruction that happened under the banner of forbidding western education only made people value education more than before, having seen what its absence can do.

The air is hot and stuffy in the tent where Binta Adamu, Community Health Extension Worker (CHEW), is attending to pregnant girls and women, immunising children and treating minor illnesses. She works in Primary Health Care management, covering a catchment area of 15 communities. She has worked as a CHEW since 2001. A lot has changed in sixteen years.

“The environment used to be lovely, but during the conflict, all the structures were bombed and equipment was destroyed.”

Binta tells that the community only started to return last year. There were no schools left. Many girls had spent over six months with Boko Haram and were sometimes rejected by their husbands when they came back. Men had also been captured, and killed. The militants threw bodies into wells – some alive. People still don’t go anywhere near them.

But she also observed a resilient spirit growing in the community. The destruction that happened under the banner of forbidding western education only made people value education more than before, having seen what its absence can do. Before the norm was to marry the girls before they turned 14. “Now I’m starting to see more and more delaying until they are 17 or 18.”

Bringing children for immunisation is also starting to become more routine: food distributers often request to see a vaccination card on collection. While displacement can increase birth rate, Binta says that many were introduced to family planning in the IDP camps. “No-one wants to be pregnant away from home, especially in conditions like those on the camps”. Now people expect to receive the same services in their home community. But people are traumatised. The height of the crisis was only three years ago. There is no counselling, so it is left to health workers like Binta, to tell people that “the past is past, now you have to focus on the future.”

“I am one of the internally displaced people,” she explains. “I’ve seen with my own eyes what has happened. I lost my house and everything I owned, but I didn’t lose my children.” Others were not as lucky. When she hears about girls and boys taken from their homes, she cries with the parents. “It will not happen again,” she tells them again and again.

• The Northern Nigeria Maternal and Newborn Child Health Programme (MNCH2) is a UK government funded five-year working to improve maternal and child health in Northern Nigeria through the empowerment of communities and the strengthening of health systems. Palladium International leads the implementation in collaboration with six consortium partners (Options Consulting, Society for Family Health, Axios Foundation, Marie Stopes International, Mannion Daniels and Association for Reproductive and Family Health.

Reporting by Dulce Pedroso; Editing by Adewunmi Emoruwa. [Please credit Machaha (machaha.com), a Gatefield Impact, social change project focused on the Sustainable Development Goals]