By Omar C. Garcia | Missions Pastor
Kingsland Baptist Church | Katy, Texas

Until recent weeks, not many of us had heard the name Abubakar Shekau — leader of Boko Haram, the terrorist group that has claimed responsibility for the abduction of 284 Nigerian schoolgirls. In a moved that stunned the world on April 14, Shekau and his minions kidnapped 276 girls from a school in Chibok and, shortly thereafter, another 8 girls. This is but one of the latest evils perpetrated against children by this Nigeria-based Islamic terrorist group.

As if fools and idiots were lacking on the world stage, Shekau forced his way onto the pages of the Playbill and assumed his position in front of a global audience. And he could care less about rotten tomatoes. A Boko Haram intermediary said that Shekau “is the craziest of all the commanders. He really believes it is OK to kill anyone who disagrees with him.” For an encore performance, Boko Haram slaughtered more than 300 people in a Nigerian village near the Cameroon border. No wonder the words Boko Haram have become a synonym for fear in Nigeria.

Why school girls? The answer may lie, in part, in the meaning of the words Boko Haram. This Arabic-Hausa compound phrase conveys a range of ideas from “books are forbidden” to “Western education is forbidden” or “is a sin.” A man claiming to be Shekau said in a recently released video that girls should be married by age 12, not go to school. “I abducted your girls,” he boasted. “I will sell them in the market, by Allah. There is a market for selling humans. Allah says I should sell. He commands me to sell. I will sell women. I sell women.”

As if to add insult to injury, the thickset bearded psychopath said, "Why is everybody making noise just because I took some girls who were in western education anyway?” In the mind of Shekau, it’s a sin for Muslim girls to get an education but it’s ok for him to kidnap and sell these young girls into forced marriages or slavery where they will lose their innocence and be repeatedly overpowered and raped. This is the reasoning of a man whose impoverished worldview has no regard for the sanctity of human life.


Acts of violence like those committed by Boko Haram in Nigeria are no longer just some unfortunate regional problem. The kidnapping of the schoolgirls has stirred global outrage. Parents, women, and girls around the planet are standing in solidarity with the kidnapped Nigerian students. Using the hashtag Bring Back Our Girls, people around the globe have let their voices be heard. Among them, Malala Yousafzai, the young Pakistani girl who was shot at point-blank range by the Taliban and survived.

Let’s pray that Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan indeed has some good luck in finding “our” girls. Perhaps he will finally deal decisively with Shekau and Boko Haram with the assistance of other nations who have offered their expertise and intelligence. No evil that seeks to destroy children, a nation’s most precious resource and hope for the future, should be allowed to commit acts of terror with impunity. #BringBackOurGirls

by Omar C. Garcia | Missions Pastor
Kingsland Baptist Church | Katy, Texas

Just before boarding my flight from Kolkata to Dubai last Thursday, I picked up a copy of the July 12 issue of The Gulf Times and read a disturbing story entitled: Women Protest Over Afghan Execution. The story reported the public execution of a 22 year-old woman for alleged adultery. This latest episode of violence against women in Afghanistan took place in a village about 100-kilometers outside of Kabul, the capital of this Islamic nation. The execution of this woman named Najiba was captured on video. The disturbing video shows the young woman seated on the ground while a group of Taliban militants prayed before pronouncing her sentence and shooting her in the back several times at close range — all this as dozens of men cheered from the adjacent hillside. Najiba’s execution sparked both local and international outrage, calling for Karzai’s government to bring the culprits to justice.

Afghanistan is a very dangerous place for women. According to the country’s Independent Human Rights Commission, there has been a sharp increase of violence against women in the past year. Earlier this month a woman and two of her children were beheaded in eastern Afghanistan by her own husband. This was just one more in a series of so-called honor killings. And, what makes Najiba’s execution even more abominable is the revelation by Basir Salangi, the governor of Parwan Province. According to Salangi, two Taliban commanders were sexually involved with Najiba, either through rape or romantically. These two men decided to settle their dispute by torturing and killing the young woman. The double-standard is evident. The honor is not. Is it any wonder why Afghanistan is a dangerous place for women? The hypocritical and self-righteous Taliban have once again demonstrated what the world would look like with the absence of grace. When power is not tempered by grace, things can get ugly in a hurry.

The Bible speaks of an occasion when some religious leaders brought a woman to Jesus — a woman caught in the very act of adultery (John 8:1-12). The man, of course, was nowhere to be found. The religious leaders reminded Jesus that the law allowed for the stoning of such a woman. Jesus invited any among the woman’s accusers who was himself without sin to cast the first stone. That’s all it took to remind these hyper-pious men that their lives were as covered by the filth of sin as that of the woman they had publicly humiliated. And then, after the woman’s accusers had all left, Jesus forgave the woman and told her to change her ways. This simple act of grace gave this woman an opportunity to make a new start. And who among us has not longed for a new start?

The answer to making Afghanistan a safer place for woman and children goes much deeper than anything that Karzai’s government can do. What is broken or missing is a fundamental respect for the sanctity of human life and the capacity to exercise mercy and grace — all of which are not a part of the Taliban worldview. Without the presence of grace and love to temper power, we can expect to read more stories about woman and children who are the victims of hypocritical and brutal men who have no regard for the value of life and who are unwilling to come to terms with their own sinfulness. The Taliban and others like them have turned Afghanistan into an ugly and unsafe place. And there is certainly no honor in that. May Najiba's executioners be brought to justice.

by Omar C. Garcia | Missions Pastor
Kingsland Baptist Church | Katy, Texas

The death of Fakhra Younus last month reignited international outcry concerning the plight of Pakistani women who are the victims of an unbelievably brutal practice — acid attacks on women. Younus, a once beautiful woman, was allegedly attacked by her then-husband Bilal Khar, in May 2000. The attack left Younus horribly disfigured. Her caretaker reported that she often feared that Younus would die in the night because she could not breathe. “We used to put a straw in the little bit of her mouth that was left,” she said, “because the rest was all melted together.” After the attack, the Italian government offered Younus asylum, paid for her treatment, and provided money for her to live. Younus endured more than three dozen surgeries and hoped to one day return to Pakistan to reopen her case and fight for justice. However, on March 17, the horribly disfigured Younus decided life was no longer worth living and jumped to her death from her sixth-story apartment. She was laid to rest in Karachi, Pakistan on March 25.

The story of Fakhra Younus is only one among the thousands of similar stories that emerge from Pakistan annually. According to The Aurat Foundation, a women’s rights organization, more than 8,500 acid attacks and other forms of violence against women were reported n Pakistan in 2011. This foundation also reported an increase of 37.5 percent in the number of acid throwing incidents in the country. Acid is a weapon of choice for revenge against women by their husbands, by suitors whose marriage proposals or sexual advances are rejected, or in cases of unmet demands for dowry. In many cases, the attackers often appear to operate with impunity and are not brought to justice. In the case of Bilal Khar, Younus’ ex-husband, many believe the he used his powerful political connections to escape accountability.

Time will tell what impact the outcry over Younus’ death will have on the Pakistani government to do more to prevent acid attacks and other forms of inhumane acts of violence and brutality against women. The Pakistani government should be embarrassed that Younus was embraced by and found help in the arms of the Italians rather than in their own arms. The Aurat Foundation reported that Younus believed that “the system in Pakistan was never going to provide her with relief or remedy” and that she “was totally disappointed that there was no justice available to her.” These beliefs became the breeding ground for the despair that eventually led Younus to take her own life. However, just because Younus did not see justice in her lifetime does not mean that justice will not be served. As Martin Luther King, Jr. once stated, “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” Impunity is a temporary condition.

On a deeper level, the kind of violent attacks that women in Pakistan, and in other places around the world, suffer are the result of an impoverished or nonexistent understanding of the sanctity of human life. It is unquestionably dangerous to be a woman in certain geographical contexts. A 2011 poll conducted by TrustLaw, a Thomas Reuters Foundation Service, identified Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, India, and Somalia as the most dangerous places for women. Shame on these countries! Fakhra Younus did not deserve to have acid poured on her face and she did not deserve to die. Tehmina Durrani, the woman who cared for Younus following the attack, said of Younus, “Her life was a parched stretch of hard rock on which nothing bloomed.” My prayer is that something good will bloom and that her death will not be in vain. Perhaps Younus’ blood mingled with the blood of other victims will become the seed of justice that will blossom in places where the powerful treat the weak with indignity. Time will tell.