Labour urges Govt to help in search for lost girls

New Zealand’s distance from Nigeria and our size should not prevent us from offering any assistance possible to international efforts to recover the kidnapped Nigerian girls before they are sold into sex slavery or suffer other appalling outcomes, Labour says.

“We have written to Foreign Affairs Minister, Murray McCully, asking him to offer logistical, financial, operational and active moral support to the international effort to rescue these girls,” Labour’s Women’s Affairs spokesperson Carol Beaumont says.

“At the very least, we can press the international community and Nigeria itself to combine all resources necessary to find them. Rape has been the worst of the weapons of war. These kidnappings are similar in the terror they must be causing their victims.”

Human Rights spokesperson Maryan Street said there was no question that New Zealand should add its name and resources to the international rescue effort.

“Mr McCully has said that relations with Africa are increasingly important for New Zealand.

“We are seeking support for a position on the UN Security Council. Now is the moment for the government to put its aid money where Mr McCully’s mouth is, and for us to step up with assistance for these Nigerian girls,” she said.

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