The plight of nearly 300 Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by the Boko Haram terrorist organization has gone from a national tragedy to an international crisis.
What is #bringbackourgirls?
Nigerians began tweeting using the hashtags #BringBackOurGirls and #WhereAreOurDaughters as part of campaign to make the Nigerian government do more to bring the girls home. #BringBackOurGirls, started by a man named Ibrahim M Abdullahi, became the most commonly accepted hashtag for the pressure campaign. Abdullahi has since built up a staff of over 20 to work on the hashtag and manage a full #BringBackOurGirls account. Other hashtags have also been used in tweets about the situation, including #SaveOurGirls and #FreeOurGirls. But #BringBackOurGirls has emerged as the clear heart of the online movement to bring attention to the Chibok kidnapping.
#BringBackOurGirls didn't really take off internationally until April 30th, when the first reports of the girls being sold to Boko Haram fighters broke. Here's a chart of uses of the hashtag on Twitter:
Since then, the campaign has taken off across social media platforms, with #BringBackOurGirls being mentioned by Hillary Clinton and a number of prominent celebrities. Since May 4th, twice as many #BringBackOurGirls tweets have come from America as from Nigeria.
Michelle Obama |
First Lady Michelle Obama has joined an online campaign to bring home the 276 girls kidnapped from their school in Nigeria by Islamic militants on April 14th this year.
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