[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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