Welcome to Episode 22 of the Social Justice Salon.
In this episode, we learn about the Boko Haram conflict that is ongoing in the Lake Chad Basin and how it has been affecting children, specifically those drawn into Boko Haram’s forces. Marianne is joined by the fantastic Chitra Nagarajan who gives us a rich insight into their experiences with findings from her extensive research.
Chitra is an activist, adviser, facilitator, researcher, and writer who works to analyse conflict, build peace, and promote and protect human rights, particularly those of women, girls, and other marginalised groups, predominantly in West Africa. She integrates intersectional feminist principles in her work and has written two books: The World Was In Our Hands: Voices from the Boko Haram conflict and She Called Me Woman: Nigeria’s queer women speak.
Marianne and Chitra discuss the different ways that children have been pulled into the conflict, through abduction and through grooming. We touch on the unintended impacts of the Bring Back Our Girls campaign following the abduction of girls from Chibok in 2014, and the different ways children have had to navigate the conflict as wives of fighters, mothers of children when they are children themselves, and as child soldiers.
Links and more info
Visit Chitra’s website
Buy her book The World was in our Hands: Voices from the Boko Haram Conflict
Buy her book She Called Me Woman: Nigeria’s Queer Women Speak
Follow the podcast on Instagram
Follow Marianne on Instagram and TikTok
Become a member of Marianne’s Patreon
Music by Luke Fraser at The Tonic and Artwork was by Marianne
