Women and girls escaping violence at the hands of Boko Haram and other armed groups often face stigma, sexual gender based violence and rejection when returning to their families. Your donation will ensure our team can provide psychosocial and economic support, family counselling and dialogue sessions, gender-based violence assistance and safety measures, education services, and other essential support for these vulnerable survivors and change attitudes in their communities.
1000s of women and children have been conscripted, coerced, kidnapped or forcefully recruited into Boko Haram and other non-state armed groups in northeast Nigeria for use as suicide bombers, human shields and for sexual exploitation. When these captives are rescued or escape and return to their communities, they face challenges such as stigma, rejection and safety threats. International Alert supports these returnees by providing a reintegration process to prepare for life after captivity.
International Alert runs training, education, facilitation, one-to-one support, capacity building and outreach campaigns to support the survivors and prepare the communities for a reintegrated life. We run catch-up lessons to prepare children for formal education. We train community and religious leaders to provide family reconciliation, mediation support and run community dialogues. Alert also allocates a case worker to each survivor who supports them and can refer them to additional services.
The project will reintegrate 400 survivors in 16 communities across northeast Nigeria. Reintegration is a long-term process but through this project there will be lower rates of stigmatization, rejection, gender-based violence and abuse among the survivors and these societies will be more willing to accept survivors and others affected by conflict into their communities in the future.
