A United Nations Children Emergency Fund, UNICEF, data released Tuesday has revealed that more than 75 per cent of the children involved in the attacks are girls.
The report, Beyond Chibok, stated that the number of children involved in ‘suicide’ attacks in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger has risen sharply over the past year, from four in 2014 to 44 in 2015.
The data further revealed that more than 75 per cent of the children involved in the attacks are girls.
“Let us be clear: these children are victims, not perpetrators. Deceiving children and forcing them to carry out deadly acts has been one of the most horrific aspects of the violence in Nigeria and in neighbouring countries,” said Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF Regional Director for West and Central Africa.
Released two years after the abduction of over 200 schoolgirls in Chibok, the report Beyond Chibok shows alarming trends in four countries affected by Boko Haram over the past two years.
Between January 2014 and February 2016, Cameroon recorded the highest number of suicide attacks involving children 21, followed by Nigeria with 17 and Chad with two.
The report further stated that over the past two years, nearly one in five suicide bombers was a child and three quarters of these children were girls. Last year, children were used in one out of two attacks in Cameroon, one out of eight in Chad, and one out of seven in Nigeria.
Last year, the report said, for the first time, ‘suicide’ bombing attacks in general spread beyond Nigeria’s borders, with the frequency of all suicide bombings increased from 32 in 2014 to 151 last year. In 2015, 89 of these attacks were carried out in Nigeria, 39 in Cameroon, 16 in Chad and seven in Niger.
The report revealed that the calculated use of children who may have been coerced into carrying bombs, has created an atmosphere of fear and suspicion that has devastating consequences for girls who have survived captivity and sexual violence by Boko Haram in North East Nigeria.
Children who escaped from, or were released by, armed groups are often seen as potential security threats, as shown in recent research by UNICEF and International Alert. Children born as a result of sexual violence also encounter stigma and discrimination in their villages, host communities, and in camps for internally displaced persons.
“As ‘suicide’ attacks involving children become commonplace, some communities are starting to see children as threats to their safety,” said Fontaine. “This suspicion towards children can have destructive consequences; how can a community rebuild itself when it is casting out its own sisters, daughters and mothers?”
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