Daughters of Chibok deals with the aftermath of the Boko Haram kidnappings and explores important topical global issues of gender rights and the right to education.
On April 14th 2014, the sleepy agrarian community of Chibok, in Borno State, North East Nigeria was thrust into the global spotlight when the dreaded anti-women education the terrorist group Boko Haram stormed the town at night and abducted 276 teenage schoolgirls from their dormitories. The world watched in shock and horror as videos of the young girls, surrounded by machine gun-wielding terrorists, surfaced all over the internet and satellite channels across the globe.
Daughters of Chibok deals with the aftermath of the kidnappings and explores important topical global issues of gender rights and the right to education. As the title aptly implies, it is a film about women and Chibok, and the protagonist, Yana Galang, is a woman, and mother of one of the kidnapped schoolgirls still in captivity.
Yana starts by taking viewers on a virtual tour of Chibok, and the role of the womenfolk in the community. Every woman in Chibok has a farm and relying solely on hoes and machetes, they till the semi-arid soil so they can feed their families and invest their little resources in sending their children, especially their daughters, to school. Educating their children is paramount for the women of Chibok, as they see it as the way out from a life of poverty.
Later in the film, Yana renders a heart-wrenching account of how the terrorists invaded the school in Chibok and took the girls away, including her daughter. It is an emotion-choked the anguish of a mother; framed within the bonding that this loss of many daughters has generated in this small close-knit community of Chibok.
"In the beginning, it seemed like everyone cared; but now, it seems like the world has moved on and we are just here waiting."
Five years on, 112 of the girls remain in captivity, and a cloud of despair still envelopes the town of Chibok, but Yana is hopeful that her daughter and the other girls will soon return.
She has become a voice of courage, and symbol of strength for the other grieving mothers.
Daughters of Chibok is a story of loss, pain, and strength – a testimony to the outstanding and admirable bravery of these Chibok women – housewives and mothers, who are steadfastly keeping hope alive, believing that someday their daughters will return home into their arms.