Two weeks ago in Chibok, a village in North Eastern Nigeria, 230 schoolgirls were kidnapped. There was no word of what happened to these missing girls until Monday when a schoolteacher, Samsn Dawah called the villagers together.

We have heard from members of the forest community where they took the girls. They said there had been mass marriages and the girls are being shared out as wives among the Boko Haram militants

 

Dawah tells the Guardian:

My wife keeps asking me, why isn’t the government deploying every means to find our children

 

Did I find out about this horrific story on Google News? The front page of New York Times? The cover of Time or Newsweek? Anywhere in Time or Newsweek or a U.S. newsweekly? No. I heard about these girls sold into slavery from Gloria Steinem’s Facebook page where she posted the link with this statement:

230 schoolgirls were kidnapped in the north-eastern Nigerian village of Chibok two weeks ago and potentially sold to militants. We’re trying to make sure it gets the attention it deserves so that authorities take swift action. Please stand in solidarity with the families of the girls and spread the word! #Freeourgirls #BringBackOurGirls

 

When Pulitzer Prize winning journalists Nicolas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn wrote Half the Sky, they explained the need for their book:

When a prominent dissident was arrested in China, we would write a front-page article; when 100,000 girls were kidnapped and trafficked into brothels, we didn’t even consider it news.

 

Please don’t be passive bystander to gender Apartheid and sexual slavery– or should I just say Apartheid and slavery– in 2014. Speak out. Share this story. Sign this petition. Don’t let these girls disappear.

Here’s another quote from Half the Sky:

in the 19th century, the paramount moral challenge was slavery. In the 20th century, it was totalitarianism. In this century, it is the brutality inflicted on so many women and girls around the globe: sex trafficking, acid attacks, bride burnings and mass rape….

Misogyny is not a “cultural” issue. It’s a human rights issue. Stop the violence against women.