The Girl In The Viral #BringBackOurGirls Photo Isn’t Even From Nigeria

World • Katie Gonza

Since certain advocates highlighted the fact that the international community was largely ignoring the abduction of the 200-some* Nigerian school girls who were kidnapped by Islamist extremists in April, the #BringBackOurGirls campaign has taken off via various social media channels.
But in all the hype, some individuals and organizations have forgotten to check their political correctness.
In many images accompanying stories about the abduction — including the now-famous and highly-circulated #BringBackOurGirls poster — the young women portrayed are not Nigerian, have not been kidnapped, and never consented to be the face of this horrific incident.
In the campaign’s viral image in particular, the grainy photo of a girl crying and staring out towards the camera features Jenabu Balde — who might be black, but she’s definitely not Nigerian.
Instead, Balde is from Guinea-Bissau, a country in western Africa that’s over 2,000 miles away from the northeastern Nigeria town of Chibok where the girls were abducted.
The image’s original photographer, Ami Vitale, noticed that the photo, in which Balde is simply waiting for her school teacher to arrive, had become the image most associated with the kidnappings through Twitter.
She’s since spoken out through The New York Times and The Washington Post about what it means that the photo was used by Emmanuel Hephzibah, a Nigerian creative director, to help popularize support for this country’s crisis.

“There are many times when I get upset when people take my photos without permission, but this isn’t about that. I support the campaign completely and I would do anything to bring attention to the situation. It’s a beautiful campaign that shows the power of social media. This is a separate issue. This is about misrepresentation.”

While it’s often important for retweets or Instagram likes to have a compelling image associated with any campaign, it’s more important to remember the real victims at the center of this issue: the Nigerian girls whose faces their families may never see again.
*Editor’s Note: The actual figure of Nigerian schoolgirls who were abducted varies from source to source, but US intelligence estimates that number to be 276.
H/T: Mashable, Photo Courtesy