Escaped Boko Haram Captive Pregnant, Stigmatised By Her Community

Um Haleema was just 16 years old when she was kidnapped. Her first few months in captivity, at the hands of militant group Boko Haram were very difficult for her. She was captured trying to escape, along with three of her friends, as Boko Haram burned and ransacked her village.
During her captivity, Um Haleema was forced to watch men, women and children slaughtered. She was forced into marriage. Forced to wait on a "husband" she hated. But while she watched, she says she was also waiting -- for a chance to break free. And after six long months, it finally came.

"I had planned my escape from the beginning," she says. "There was a time my husband spent two weeks away, so I attempted to escape but guards returned me and beat me."

Eventually, her captors' vigilance began to slip and she managed to escape. In her fear, all she remembers is walking for what felt like days until she finally reached safety.

She arrived home to discover that her father had been killed by the same Boko Haram militants who had held her captive for almost a year. She also found she had become pregnant by her Boko Haram husband.

"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.

Via CNN