A documentary showing the struggle of 103 Nigerian schoolgirls to reintegrate after their release from Boko Haram captivity will show tonight on the US satellite TV channel HBO.
Stolen Daughters: Kidnapped by Boko Haram, a co-production of HBO, BBC2 and ARTE France, will be on at 7pm Central Time.
The kidnapping of the girls from the predominantly Christian northern Nigerian town of Chibok in April 2014 gained international attention. In all, 276 girls were kidnapped. Over 100 are still missing.
The documentary tells about their efforts to rebuild their lives: after their release, the girls lived in a safe house provided by the government, with limited access to the outside world. There, they received education and counselling, taking slow steps to re-integrate into society. Later they moved on to studying at the American University of Nigeria, funded by the government.
Yet not everyone is happy with the documentary, with the chairman of the Chibok Girls Parents Forum, Yakubu Nkeki, saying it “will only remind them of their own daughters still missing”.
“If it were on those yet to be released, it will rekindle hope and we will be happy with that,” he told International Christian Concern in comments forwarded to the Baptist Press. “Those already released are on hand and we are no longer worried about them.”
The documentary was first shown on the BBC 2 in May this year.
Another Christian girl still in Boko Haram captivity is Leah Sharibu, who was recently threatened with life as a slave.