Condemning the Abduction of Female Students by Boko Haram

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Royce for swiftly bringing this important resolution, H. Res. 573, to the floor. I thank Congresswoman Frederica Wilson for her sponsorship and also Eliot Engel for the bipartisanship that has been exhibited on behalf of this very, very important and timely resolution.

Mr. Speaker, nearly 2 months ago, a large group of uniformed men, Boko Haram terrorists, kidnapped nearly 300 schoolgirls from the Chibok Government Girls Secondary School. This case has recently caught the attention of the international community, and people worldwide are now--and belatedly, I would suggest--calling for swift action to recover these innocent young women.

Unfortunately--and perversely--Boko Haram now basks in its international attention and continues to release videos to demonstrate the leverage they believe they have gained by this and other kidnappings. Meanwhile, boys caught by these terrorists are not kidnapped; they are summarily executed. Fifty-nine of them were killed in one school alone in Borno State just this past February.

Mr. Speaker, the Government of Nigeria continues to be slow to react to this outrageous situation, even after accepting much-needed international security assistance.

It is only since the uproar in Nigeria and outside the country that the Nigerian Government has asked for international assistance in addressing this situation. That request has triggered a U.S. interagency team consisting of personnel from the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, USAID, AFRICOM, and the FBI.

That team was led by AFRICOM commander General David Rodriguez and Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights Sarah Sewall, who will testify tomorrow at Chairman Royce's hearing.

This enhanced engagement is welcomed in light of weak efforts by the Nigerian Government and a police-military-security apparatus that we have found to operate in a very divided manner and make enemies among the Nigerian public by their clumsy and sometimes brutal response to Boko Haram terrorist attacks.

Mr. Speaker, it is worth noting here that, for years, many of us--and this has been bipartisan--have been calling on the Obama administration to declare Boko Haram a foreign terrorist organization.

I held a hearing back in 2012 and asked, rather pointedly, of then-Assistant Secretary of State Johnnie Carson why Boko Haram was not so designated, particularly in light of the killings that occurred at the U.N. facility in Abuja. There were no good answers. We tried again. I finally went on a factfinding trip in September of last year.

We went to Jos, Greg Simpkins, my staff director and I, and met with people who were the survivors of firebombing attacks that occurred in their churches while they were at mass or at church service on Sunday. We heard harrowing tales.

We even brought one of the survivors, a man named Ikenna Nzeribe, who came and told how an AK-47 was put to his jaw. He was told: You either renounce your faith in your Jesus or you die. He said: I am ready to see my Lord.

The trigger was pulled, and he lost half of his face and was left for dead.

I say that because the brutality of this organization--which now has some 300 young, innocent women that are probably being raped and abused in so many ways--just underscores the need for concerted action, first and foremost, by Nigeria and, secondly, by a

full assist by the international communities.
Earlier today, five mutually reinforcing bills to combat human trafficking passed on this floor of the House of Representatives. This is another vivid, extraordinary, hard example of human trafficking, of stealing young girls right from their school, putting them in trucks, and then taking them into the bush where horrible things are being done to them.

We need to leave no stone unturned, and if that means lifting in the sense of only working with those troops that are human rights certified to assist the military of Nigeria, parts of the Leahy amendment may have to be waived, we have to provide that command and control and that ability for the Nigerian military to find and bring these young girls back to safety.

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