BY Philip Obaji
Culled from News Deeply
After the Boko Haram insurgency began in northeast Nigeria in 2009, thousands of people started fleeing the region to other parts of the country, including to my home city of Calabar in southern Nigeria.
Many of these survivors were children who had lost their parents during the war. Rather than continuing their education, they were transported to Calabar by modern-day slave owners who found work for them as housekeepers and gatemen, and received pay on their behalf.
I had never been to the northeast of my country, but I was so touched by their stories – including of rape, torture and intimidation by Boko Haram militants – I decided to move there to become a human rights educator and children’s rights advocate.
I relocated to Maiduguri, the capital of Nigeria’s northeastern Borno state, and moved around the internally displaced persons’ (IDP) camps in the region supporting displaced children so they could…
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