800,000 children forced to flee violence in Nigeria

Around 800,000 children have been forced to flee their homes as a result of the conflict in northeast Nigeria between Boko Haram, military forces and civilian self-defence groups – according to a new report from UNICEF.

Released one year after the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls in Chibok, Missing Childhoods reveals that the number of children running for their lives within Nigeria, or crossing over the border to Chad, Niger and Cameroon, has more than doubled in just less than a year.

“The abduction of more than 200 girls in Chibok is only one of endless tragedies being replicated on an epic scale across Nigeria and the region,” says Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF Regional Director for West and Central Africa. “Scores of girls and boys have gone missing in Nigeria – abducted, recruited by armed groups, attacked, used as weapons, or forced to flee violence. They have the right to get their childhoods back”

Missing Childhoods outlines how the conflict is exerting a heavy toll on children in Nigeria and across the region in an increasing number of ways:

- Children are being used within the ranks of Boko Haram as combatants, cooks, porters and look-outs.

- Young women and girls are being subjected to forced marriage, forced labor and rape.

- Students and teachers have been deliberately targeted with more than 300 schools damaged or destroyed and at least 196 teachers and 314 schoolchildren killed by the end of 2014.