The government of Nigeria has accepted aid from the United States to track down and rescue the more than 300 girls who have been kidnapped by the terrorist group Boko Haram. President Barack Obama said that the U.S. will “do everything we can” to help Nigeria. “Obviously, what’s happening is awful and, as a father of two girls, I can’t imagine what the parents are going through,” Obama said.
Boko Haram, which loosely translated means,“Western education is forbidden,” are responsible for hundreds of killings across Nigeria. In February, gunmen stormed a school, locked a boys’ dormitory and burned more than 40 boys alive, but international media outrage was sparked only recently when the group’s terrorist leader Abubakar Shekau stated publicly that he would sell young girls “in the marketplace.”
Shekau is reportedly extremely intelligent, resourceful and possessing a photographic memory. Attempts to capture him up until this point have largely failed.
Every single female U.S. senator sent a letter to President Obama calling for intervention on behalf of the girls. “As the women of the United States Senate, we are writing to you today deeply disturbed by the abduction and mistreatment of more than 200 girls by the terrorist group Boko Haram,” the letter read.
So should the U.S. intervene to help stop sex trafficking, or is it none of our government’s business? Why does it always seem that whenever there is some injustice around the world that everyone relies on Team America: World Police to step in and mop up the mess? What is even the point of the United Nations?
All that and more on the Freedom Report podcast. And don’t forget to take our poll below.
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