Um Haleema Heroic Story.

Um Haleema is one of the rescued girls from the hands of Boko Haram. She
was just 16 years old when she was kidnapped. Her time in captivity, at the
hands of militant group Boko Haram, were enough to break anyone's spirit --
let alone that of a teenage girl so far from home.

During her captivity, Um Haleema was forced into marriage. After her release,
she also found she had become pregnant by her Boko Haram husband. The fact
that she is now pregnant has left her scared; scared of stigmatization from her
community.

"People in this village are rejecting me because of the pregnancy," she says.
"Some will be happy to have me dead. Many people are even saying that I
should go for an abortion." It's an option she refuses to contemplate, even
though she says local men have let it be known they will not tolerate the
children of Boko Haram living amongst them. She says they have threatened to
kill both her and her baby.

Regardless of what others say, surviving both abduction and escape has made
Um Haleema realize that she has the strength to see through this. Her child,
she says, deserves to live.

Reading the story of Um Haleema on CNN, I was happy to hear her stand up for
the right of life for the unborn. She says it unequivocally that her child deserves
to live, and having found strength from her ordeal with her captors, she is ready
to have her child.

Her fear is that of stigmatization and even threat to her life and the baby by her
community, offering her the option of abortion, which she has refused to
contemplate because it is no different from the activities of her captors. She
believes in the sacredness of life starting from her own to her unborn child.
I think that Um Haleema has shown us with this heroic act that there’s no such
thing as unwanted child, that when we speak of unwanted child we almost
always speak of the attitude of the community or the grown up individuals.
Unintended pregnancy does not in any way make the child unwanted. Every
child should be wanted, is that not always the theory of inclusion we speak
about and cry out when it is violated, where everyone is a wanted person to be
loved and protected.

She has also shown us that our notion of this children growing up to be like
their fathers is wrong. Maybe it is time we ask ourselves if the Boko Haram
militants are so, because their parents were Boko Haram militants or because of
other circumstances. Was it nature, orientation or nurture that turned them into
Boko Haram militants? It wasn’t obviously nature, so why are these women and
their children stigmatized from the community? Why are they being offered
abortion as the only option for inclusion? Making them execute the same ordeal
(keeping hostage and eventually killing) they have gone through on their
children in the womb?

We need to educate our communities and ourselves and not just be people of
ideologies. We need to learn to respect the sacredness of life, finding a place for
everyone (born and unborn) in the community.

Um Haleema has shown us a worthy and right path that our consciences oblige
us to take, so, as to preserve the moral fabric of the society. She deserves
compassion and care – not violence. It will be a failure of public leadership and
morality if we don’t offer her what she deserves.

Of course, the UNFPA, which is working in camps for Nigeria's internally
displaced, according to CNN reported that 214 women in the camps were
visibly pregnant, but it is still assessing how many got pregnant while being
held by Boko Haram, and if there are still more in the earlier stages of
pregnancy.

"We do not know yet the total number of pregnant girls among those rescued,"
said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for United Nations Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon in a report. "The screening is still ongoing." UNFPA said it is working
to meet the medical, physical and psychological needs of the freed women.
Every child, never an unwanted child!

Ntube is on the staff of Project for Human Development, an NGO based in
Lagos.

 source:ThisDay