On 15 April 300 girls were kidnapped from their secondary school in Nigeria by the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram, which threatened to sell them. And it seems everyone is taking to social media, demanding under the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls that they be brought home safely.
Even US First Lady Michelle Obama held up her sign, tweeting: “our prayers are with the missing Nigerian girls and their families."
According to an article in the Telegraph, 2016 presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton called the kidnapping an "act of terrorism" and accused the Nigerian government of being "somewhat derelict" in its response.
So far the US has sent fewer than 10 troops to Nigeria, but has no plans to launch a larger-scale recovery operation.
Celebrities like Sean Penn aren't strangers to political activism. And while images of celebrities like Justin Timberlake, Ashton Kutcher, Jamie Foxx holding up #RealMenDontBuyGirls boards are laudable, they should be taken at face value.
The Real Men hashtag is apparently years old, set up by Kutcher along with then-wife Demi Moore back in 2011, according to an article in the BBC, with a view to ending the sex trafficking of children.
The re-release of such images came not from the celebs themselves but from Twitter users. And as is wont with social media, the message has spread like wildfire.
More than 1.6 million users have retweeted the Bring Back message so far. And the abduction has sparked a global movement, prompting users to devote 200 minutes on social media in support of the missing Nigerian girls.
Erica Ehm wants your help to end child slavery.
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