[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 67 (Tuesday, May 6, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2699-S2700]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CONDEMNING ABDUCTION OF FEMALE STUDENTS IN NIGERIA
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Foreign
Relations Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res.
433 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will report the resolution by title.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A resolution (S. Res. 433) condemning the abduction of
female students by armed militants from the Government Girls
Secondary School in the northeastern province of Borno in the
Federal Republic of Nigeria.
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the
resolution.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
now proceed to a voice vote on the resolution.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the resolution.
The resolution (S. Res. 433) was agreed to.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I further ask the preamble be agreed to,
and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the
table, with no intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The preamble was agreed to.
(The resolution, with its preamble, is printed in the Record of May
1, 2014, under ``Submitted Resolutions.'')
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, am I correct in assuming that we have now
agreed to this resolution?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I want to thank my friends. It looks as
though the Chamber is empty here, but everyone had to sign off on this
measure, and I want to explain what we just did. We passed a very
important resolution expressing our support for the young girls who
were kidnapped in Nigeria.
As I think the world is learning, this is a horrific situation.
Kidnapping certainly has no place in any village, in any region, or in
any country--not in our country. We know how we feel. We have seen
kidnappings recently of
[[Page S2700]]
women held in captivity. There should be no room anywhere for
kidnapping. Today we heard new reports that the suspected Boko Haram
gunmen kidnapped eight more girls from the Nigerian village overnight.
So clearly the voices of the civilized world must rise and be louder
than the terrorists who are taking away basic human rights.
Senator Landrieu's resolution we just passed has many supporters on
it, including myself. I am also pleased to hear today the
administration has committed to acting with the Nigerian Government.
As a mother and grandmother, my heart is with all those mothers and
grandmothers and dads and grandfathers who want their daughters and
granddaughters to come home safely. We cannot stay silent in the face
of these unspeakable crimes. We are not silent today as a U.S. Senate.
I am so proud we have agreed to this resolution. I want to commend my
friend Senator Mikulski. She and Senator Collins have worked on a
letter we are sending to the administration. I am about to go outside
to be part of a vigil, an event that has been organized by the
Congressional African Staff Association as well as the Congressional
Hispanic Staff Association and the Congressional Black Associates, and
I am so proud of the Senate for standing for these girls. We will do
everything we possibly can to get them home to their families.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Boxer
resolution calling for international action and aggressive action from
our own government in terms of the rescue of 276 Nigerian girls who
were kidnapped from a boarding school their parents paid for them to be
able to go to so they could learn.
It is an outrage that these 276 girls have been captured by the
terrorist group Boko Haram. It is an outrage against these girls and an
outrage in the international community, and we need to speak as a
nation--women and men together--saying, what is this where a girl can't
go to school simply because she is a girl?
There is strong evidence that, as we speak, these girls are being
sold into forced marriages and sexual slavery.
We, the women of the Senate, have written a letter on a bipartisan
basis calling for the President to have the Boko Haram group placed on
the international Al-Qaeda terrorist list and calling for sanctions to
be imposed against them. We are heartened by the fact that the
President is sending a team to help the Government of Nigeria find
these girls, bring them home safely to their mothers and fathers, get
the bad guys, and send an international message: Leave girls and boys
alone.
There are additional rumors coming out that schools where boys had
been attending, simply because they are in Western-based education, are
being burned down and that the boys' lives are in danger. What kind of
world is it where a parent, based on parental choice, can't send a
child to school without thinking they could be kidnapped, abused, sold
into sexual slavery, and so on?
We encourage the efforts by the U.S. Government to support the
capacity of the Government of Nigeria to provide security for these
schools and to hold these organizations accountable. We urge timely
civilian assistance from the United States and allied nations in
rescuing these girls.
Many of us believe there should be a regional African coalition to go
in which knows the terrain to find these girls. But our President is
sending military and law enforcement people to advise the Government of
Nigeria, which has been slow to respond. It is not my place to
criticize another President, but I wish they would have been more
aggressive in a more timely way. Now we are where we are, so I hope we
pass the Boxer resolution calling for international help.
I believe we in the Senate, on a bipartisan basis, should join the
international voice calling for the rescue of these girls, the return
of them home safely to their mothers and fathers, to capture and punish
the bad guys, and that there be an international effort to let children
of the world be able to go to the school their parents choose for them
to go.
I thank Senator Boxer. We are going to be working together. The women
of the Senate are going to be meeting with Secretary Kerry, and I
believe this is an issue worthy of our attention, worthy of our time,
and worthy of our vote.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the letter of support be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC, May 6, 2014.
President Barack Obama,
The White House, Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. President: As the women of the United States
Senate, we are writing to you today deeply disturbed by the
abduction and mistreatment of more than 200 girls by the
terrorist group Boko Haram from the Government Secondary
School in Chibok, Nigeria. Boko Haram has threatened to sell
the girls as slaves, and some may have already been sold into
child marriages. We condemn these appalling actions in the
strongest possible terms, and we agree with you that the
abduction of these girls is an outrage. The girls were
targeted by Boko Haram simply because they wanted to go to
school and pursue knowledge, and we believe the U.S. must
respond quickly and definitively.
In the face of the brazen nature of this horrific attack,
the international community must impose further sanctions on
this terrorist organization. Boko Haram is a threat to
innocent civilians in Nigeria, to regional security, and to
U.S. national interests. The National Counterterrorism Center
(NCTC) has found that Boko Haram has engaged in multiple
attacks on Westerners and repeatedly targeted students at
schools and universities, threatening the ability of young
Nigerians, particularly women, to attend school.
While we applaud the initial U.S. condemnation of the
kidnapping, we believe there is much more that the U.S.
government should do to make clear that such an attack will
not be tolerated. We urge you to press for the addition of
Boko Haram and Ansaru to the United Nations Security
Council's al-Qa'ida Sanctions List, the mechanism by which
international sanctions are imposed on al-Qa'ida and al-
Qa'ida-linked organizations. Their addition to the List would
compel a greater number of countries to sanction Boko Haram,
joining several countries, such as the United States, which
have already done so. General David Rodriguez, Commander of
U.S. Africa Command, identified Boko Haram as an al-Qa'ida
affiliate, and the Department of State reported that the
group has links to al-Qa'ida in the Islamic Maghreb when it
designated Boko Haram as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
Thank you for your attention to this matter. We look
forward to working together until girls and women worldwide
can pursue an education without fear of violence or
intimidation.
Sincerely,
Barbara A. Mikulski,
U.S. Senator.
Susan M. Collins,
U.S. Senator.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
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