National Review: Nigerian Girls Are Being Kidnapped

The op-ed was originally published by National Review on November 7, 2025.

By U.S. Representative Hakeem Jeffries, USCIRF Vice Chair Asif Mahmood and Commissioner Maureen Ferguson

Islamic terrorists have inflicted a decade of religiously motivated sexual violence on Christian women and girls.

In Nigeria, the names parents give their babies often contain a verb, a noun, and an adjective compressed into one word that tells of their family's faith and history. For Leah Sharibu - a Christian girl born in Nigeria's Borno State - her name means "woman of worth." Her parents, Rebecca and Nathan, named her in honor of the biblical matriarch known for her strong faith and resilience and the fulfillment of divine purpose.

When Leah was 14 years old, Boko Haram terrorists kidnapped her and 109 other girls from her school in Dapchi. Mass abductions of girls is a chillingly common tactic of Nigeria's Islamic terrorists. Boko Haram - which translates to "Western education is forbidden" - drags girls by the hundreds into Nigeria's vast forests and forces them to convert to Islam and "marry" their captors.

Over time, many of the girls taken from the Dapchi school were released. But not Leah. She refused to renounce her Christian faith, so the terrorists refused to let her go.

She has been held captive for nearly eight years now. We know from Leah's released classmates that she has lived up to her biblical namesake as an inspiring pillar of faith and resilience. Reportedly, Leah has survived giving birth to at least two children in the forest.

She is not alone. Over the past decade, thousands of Nigerian girls like Leah have been abducted and tortured, held until ransomed or kept as sex slaves.

After the 2014 kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls in Chibok, the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls garnered a flash of international attention from celebrities, politicians, and the media. As a result, some of the Chibok girls were rescued by the government. But 91 - mostly Christian - remain captive in the forests of Nigeria, largely forgotten.

The schoolgirl abductions are only part of the broader campaign of terror being waged against innocent Nigerians today. In the north, Boko Haram, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), and Lakurawa are slaughtering Christians as well as moderate Muslims who won't support jihad. In the central Middle Belt states, heavily armed radical Muslim Fulani herders are sweeping through the fertile land of Christian farmers, setting fire to villages and shooting or hacking to death with machetes anyone trying to escape the burning buildings.

An astonishing 3.5 million Nigerians have been chased off their land and now live in Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camps. The Catholic Church runs heroic humanitarian efforts to aid both Christians and Muslims in IDP camps, including a trauma care center for women and girls who survived the forests. A psychologist interviewed for this article (unidentified because of the likelihood of reprisal attacks) shared one of the typical stories of the 3,000 women his trauma center has served:

"I woke up to the sounds of gunshots," his patient recounted. "Part of my village was on fire.... Six heavily armed men forced me to the ground and tied my hands. My husband was made to kneel down and asked to recite the shahadah (the Islamic declaration of faith). He refused . . . [and] was brutally murdered before me and my two kids.... We were made to trek for over five hours into the forest . . . along with 56 other women.... I was beaten, tortured, denied food, and locked up in a cage for refusing to convert to Islam. When they saw I could not be convinced nor forced to change my religion, I was declared a slave.... I struggled to escape . . . [and made it to] the Internally Displaced Persons' camp."

Leah's parents pray constantly that she, too, will one day escape or be rescued.

Perhaps that day is coming soon. President Trump has just named Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) because of the systematic, ongoing, severe violations of religious freedom occurring there. CPC designation is a powerful diplomatic tool that gives the Trump administration extensive levers to pressure the government of Nigeria to do more to protect its people.

President Trump declared in his Truth Social post on the CPC designation, "The United States cannot stand by while such atrocities are happening in Nigeria." Hopefully the administration can insist that leaders in Abuja, the capital, step up their efforts to rescue Leah and others like her.

In the meantime, Leah's parents pray daily and light candles on her birthday each year in the hope that she will be reunited with them someday.

Maureen Ferguson was appointed to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Liberty by Speaker Mike Johnson in May 2024. Asif Mahmood is a practicing physician, human rights activist, interracial and interfaith community organizer, and philanthropist. He was appointed to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Liberty by Representative Hakeem Jeffries.