[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ fullwidth=”on” admin_label=”Section” _builder_version=”4.16″ global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_fullwidth_header title=”Rukayyah” text_orientation=”right” header_fullscreen=”on” content_orientation=”bottom” content_max_width=”none” title_font_color=”#000000″ admin_label=”Fullwidth Header” _builder_version=”4.16″ title_font=”Lato|on|||” title_text_color=”#000000″ title_font_size=”80px” background_color=”rgba(255, 255, 255, 0)” background_image=”http:\/\/cusjc.ca\/mrp\/finding-home\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/04\/Rukayyah-banner-one.jpg” parallax=”on” background_layout=”light” background_url=”http:\/\/cusjc.ca\/mrp\/finding-home\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/04\/Rukayyah-banner-one.jpg” button_one_letter_spacing_hover=”0″ button_two_letter_spacing_hover=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” button_one_text_size__hover_enabled=”off” button_two_text_size__hover_enabled=”off” button_one_text_color__hover_enabled=”off” button_two_text_color__hover_enabled=”off” button_one_border_width__hover_enabled=”off” button_two_border_width__hover_enabled=”off” button_one_border_color__hover_enabled=”off” button_two_border_color__hover_enabled=”off” button_one_border_radius__hover_enabled=”off” button_two_border_radius__hover_enabled=”off” button_one_letter_spacing__hover_enabled=”on” button_one_letter_spacing__hover=”0″ button_two_letter_spacing__hover_enabled=”on” button_two_letter_spacing__hover=”0″ button_one_bg_color__hover_enabled=”off” button_two_bg_color__hover_enabled=”off”] [\/et_pb_fullwidth_header][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ admin_label=”section” _builder_version=”4.16″ global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” _builder_version=”4.16″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” global_colors_info=”{}” column_structure=”1_4,1_2,1_4″][et_pb_column type=”1_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_padding=”|||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_padding=”|||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”4.16″ text_font=”Lato||||” text_text_color=”#000000″ text_font_size=”18″ text_line_height=”2em” background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” global_colors_info=”{}”]Four yards of a hijab wrapped Rukayyah\u2019s body as she slept through the Friday afternoon. The camp was emptier than usual. Many of the Boko Haram men had travelled to preach their ideology, but a few of them stayed behind to keep guard.<\/p>\n
Rukayyah, 17, had lived at the hideout for one year and a month. Boko Haram assigned her to the slave yard for the first five months. It was her duty to wash the clothes, fetch the water, and to pound and cook for more than one hundred people.<\/p>\n
Rukayyah told me that the wahala <\/em>\u2013 a Nigerian word that is used to describe varying levels of difficulty \u2013 was enormous.<\/p>\n So, when she was presented with a choice to remain a slave or to marry, she opted for a Boko Haram marriage.<\/p>\n Even as a captive, marriage had its benefits. She owned her own room in a makeshift house built with wood, bamboo and zinc.<\/p>\n Prrah!<\/p>\n Rukayyah jolted out of her siesta.<\/p>\n Prrah! Prrah! Prrah!<\/p>\n The Boko Haram terrorists had not warned anyone that they would be testing their weapons, as they usually did. She left her room to find out what was happening.<\/p>\n \u201cInfidels have attacked us,\u201d one of the Boko Haram guards rushed in to tell her and the other women in the house. \u201cDon\u2019t be scared. Stay inside the house. We\u2019re going to face them.\u201d<\/p>\n She returned to her room and waited.<\/p>\n Prrah! Prrah! Prrah!<\/p>\n When the gun battle finally ended, the men who entered the house were dressed in camouflage uniforms. Government soldiers. The so-called infidels.<\/p>\n The house was soon filled with piercing screams from women who were unhappy to see the soldiers.<\/p>\n \u201cBoko Haram wives, we are leaving with you,\u201d Rukayyah recalls the soldiers barking.<\/p>\n The women refused.<\/p>\n Rukayyah objected, too.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to say for sure why these women did not want to leave with their liberators. But a strong possibility is \u201ctraumatic bonding\u201d \u2013 more popularly known as the Stockholm syndrome.<\/p>\n \u201cIt occurs when there are experiences of abuse by a perpetrator, and these experiences are followed, intermittently, by something positive,\u201d said Connie Kristiansen, a professor of psychology at Carleton University.<\/p>\n \u201cSo it\u2019s sort of like pairing cruelty with random acts of kindness. That cycle will create an incredibly strong bond.\u201d<\/p>\n Survivors of this kind of trauma see the world through their abuser\u2019s eyes, and try to predict their mood as a way of staying safe. But they lose their own perspective of the world and start to believe the rationalizations of their abuser, Kristiansen added.<\/p>\n This could explain why despite being kept captive, and witnessing the horror that their captors are capable of, these women didn\u2019t want to leave.<\/p>\n As for Rukayyah, she had tried to escape when she still lived at the slave yard but was caught and warned. Boko Haram threatened to kill her if she made a second attempt. And she liked her so-called husband. She said he had treated her well.<\/p>\n The soldiers dragged the women to their trucks, pulling some of them by the hijabs that draped their bodies.<\/p>\n The women continued to resist. Some of them said they preferred death to any form of alliance with infidels.<\/p>\n By the time the soldiers left with the women, there was no sign of Boko Haram. They were either dead or had fled into the forest.<\/p>\n The air was thick with the stench of explosives. Rukayyah said the camp smelled like burned matchsticks.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Rukayyah heard gunshots for the first time in 2014. She was in her village, Izge, in northeastern Nigeria, fetching water at the river with five friends. This was their late afternoon routine.<\/p>\n Rukayyah sensed danger even though she didn\u2019t know what the sound was. She ran home with her friends.<\/p>\n As she approached her house, she saw a group of men, Boko Haram members, gathering the entire village. They wouldn\u2019t let her enter her own home.<\/p>\n \u201cThey told us to stand where we were,\u201d Rukayyah said about the instruction she received. \u201cThey said they were taking us away.\u201d<\/p>\n By the end of that day, more than one hundred people were dead, most of them people she knew. Nearly three dozen women, including Rukayyah, were abducted.<\/p>\n Rukayyah had heard about Boko Haram before, from stories people told about the fighters\u2019 killing sprees in villages far away from hers. She feared them the way one fears something far away. She didn\u2019t think she would one day witness their terror.<\/p>\n After she was abducted, Rukayyah\u2019s mother and grandmother, both of whom managed to escape, moved to Yola, a town about 275 kilometres away. They spent their days and nights praying Rukayyah would be found. But whatever hope they had, diminished as the months passed. On some days, they mourned and accepted that they would never see her again.<\/p>\n Rukayyah\u2019s uncle, Isa, continued to be optimistic. He talked to his friend who worked with the Nigerian Army about Rukayyah\u2019s abduction. One year passed before Isa received a text message from his friend saying Rukayyah may have been found.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Rukayyah was found in Yola, at a government-run camp for people who had been displaced by Boko Haram. For two weeks she answered questions from the Nigerian Army about her knowledge of Boko Haram and its operation.<\/p>\n Her uncle Isa went to the camp to take her home.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was totally changed,\u201d said Isa. He noticed that she had lost a substantial amount of weight.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was not herself,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n It was still not safe enough to return home, so Rukayyah stayed in Yola with her oldest uncle Joseph.Abduction<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Returning home<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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