On the recordJune 12, 2014
The gentleman met with fathers. I didn't meet with fathers. I asked a pastor: Why do we not hear more and see more of the fathers of the girls who were abducted, kidnapped, and being brutalized? I was aware, and some of them had talked about, some people choose to leave their homes to sleep so that Boko Haram doesn't invade their home at night. But some of them were explaining--and these are all mothers of daughters who were kidnapped; she had two daughters kidnapped--but that it is an interesting thing, a deeply troubling thing about evil. Sometimes people who do evil, they intentionally do things that make the victims feel guilty when it is not their fault. One of the things that counselors constantly have to deal with, and I know from having prosecuted abusive women, you are constantly having to tell them no one deserved this, no one deserved to be beaten or harmed like you were hurt, nobody. There is no excuse, it is not your fault. There were times that, as a judge, after sentencing, children would feel guilty, and I would say: You have got to understand, please don't leave my courtroom thinking you did anything wrong. One of the things that some of the fathers and some of the mothers, they were telling me, they feel so guilty about, that night in the middle of the night, they get word the school has been raided and the girls have been taken. Some of the parents went running and they went all the way to where the school was. They had nothing. They were empty- handed.…
