UN report finds Nigeria failed to protect women and girls
Abuja, Nigeria (PANA) - Nigeria has failed to do enough to prevent targeted attacks on schools, fallen short on criminalising abduction and marital rape – and on protecting schoolgirls from abduction and stigmatisation, according to a new report from a key body of independent UN experts who monitor discrimination against women.
The repeated failure “amounts to systematic and grave violations,” of women’s and girls’ rights, said chair of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Nahla Haidar, on Wednesday.
The report was published on Wednesday after a mission to the country in December 2023, where committee members met with officials from various departments and agencies, armed forces and police representatives – and victims of abduction.
The mission initially received information about the mass abduction of 276 girls in Chibok school by Boko Haram in 2014. Eighty-two escaped, 103 were released in exchange for prisoners, while at least 91 are either still in captivity or their fate is unknown.
The CEDAW delegation was the first UN body to have visited the school since the abduction, according to school staff.
“The abduction of the Chibok girls was not an isolated tragedy, but part of a series of mass abductions targeting schools and communities,” said Ms. Haidar.
She added that “at least 1,400 students have been kidnapped from schools since the Chibok abduction”.
-0- PANA MA 18Sept2025
