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In recent weeks, more than 700 women and children have been rescued from Boko Haram by the Nigerian Army. Reports suggest that at least 214 of them are visibly pregnant. While agencies like the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) provide much-needed emergency medical and psychosocial support, little effective analysis exists on the long-term needs and challenges of these children born of war and their mothers.
Unfortunately, the experience of women and children abducted by Boko Haram is not unique to the emergent situation in northern Nigeria. Nearly 2,000 miles away from Boko Haram’s stronghold in the Sambisa Forest in northern Nigeria, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) traverses the jungles of central Africa with hundreds of captive men, women and children. Known for using similar tactics of abduction and forced marriage as Boko Haram, the rebel group has survived for more than two decades despite numerous political and military attempts to expel it.
