Who Says Women Can’t Fight?
In a society where women is compared to men, where people see women as an oppressed gender, there these women in Nigeria are fighting Boko Haram and it is amazing.
Since 2012, Boko Haram has been on the US Dept. of State’s FTO (Foreign Terrorist List), is also known as ‘The Islamic State in West Africa’, which follows the same ideology of Salafism as ISIL. Many people in Nigeria have been killed by Boko Haram since 2002, which has been on a rise since 2015, the time when Boko Haram alienated itself with ISIS for a year.
In November 2015, Komi Kaje’s brother and her boyfriend, both were killed on different occasions for no reason at all. It took her sometime, where she flew to another city in search for solace, but she couldn’t resist the thought of two of her beloved people being dead, hence to not take revenge but to protect others and children’s future, she joined the military service. As being a Muslim, men aren’t allowed to touch women, which was in favor of Boko Haram, who used women as suicide bombers to attack hospitals, markets and other public places. According to US’s CTC, during 2011-2017, 244 out of 388 attacks were carried out by women. To combat it, women in the forces can search women, which has been quite helpful since women have joined the forces, helping them catch several suicide attackers.
It is said that Nigerian forces have more than 100 women who have been working to thwart the Boko Haram forces from the country, so that others don’t have to go through what they faced and the upcoming generation can live in peace.
When in crisis, women has been given importance and it is good to see that in a third-world country like Nigeria, women has been chosen equally to curb what has happened in the country as men. We can pray that things turn out good for them as they are doing whatever they can to fight an organization such as Boko Haram.
