The videos of attacks, kidnappings, and tragic funerals in Nigeria have gone viral. President Donald Trump and U.S. government officials have even commented on the ongoing violence against Christians in Nigeria, drawing attention to the brutal massacre of thousands of Christians—men, women, and children—by Islamic terrorists. And yet, the voices of those targeted are going unheard.

“Reports from northern and central Nigeria show that women—particularly Christian women—are being targeted because of their central roles in family and community life,” Ryan Brown, CEO of Open Doors US, a non-profit supporting persecuted Christians in Nigeria and globally, told IW Features.

Islamist terrorist organizations, such as Boko Haram, and radicalized Fulani militants target women and girls in kidnappings for forced marriage and religious conversion. The women and girls are brutally sexually assaulted, forced to bear children for their attackers, and sold as sex slaves.

Left traumatized by kidnappings and assaults, the women who survive are forever scarred. The psychological and physical damage has ripple effects through marriages and churches as women and their families try to piece their lives back together. Some women who were sexually assaulted by their kidnappers return home only to face stigma from their community.

The downstream effects of these attacks even include young girls who drop out of school because they are afraid of being abducted from their classrooms like hundreds of other schoolgirls.

This violence against women and girls is designed to create trauma that destroys entire families, churches, and communities.

Despite the increasing international attention, the Nigerian government still denies that radical Islamists are targeting Christians, saying Muslims are the foremost victims. Mainstream sources also often ignore or downplay the religious nature of this violence.

But, the data and stories are clear: Nigerian Christians are 6.5 times more likely to be killed than Muslims in these attacks, and survivors have reported being specifically taken after their faith is discovered and hearing militants shout “Allahu Akbar.”

The Nigerian government’s refusal to confront this violence and extremism for what it is has resulted in anarchy and violence with no end in sight. Declarations about religious freedom without action or acknowledgment of the religious conflict do nothing for those suffering.  

“There have been [government] statements condemning the violence and a few security measures, but on the ground, people tell us they feel unprotected and unheard,” Brown told IW Features.

It’s no coincidence that the lawlessness in Nigeria has made women and girls into targets. Women’s rights and safety are not incidental; they are a marker of civilization, the rule of law, and freedom. The freedoms we value in the West are inseparable from the West’s view on women’s rights. 

As Meaghan Mobbs and Mallory Jammullamudy wrote in Independent Women’s “Women and the West” report, “Where order collapses, where ideology eclipses truth, and where courage gives way to appeasement, it is women who suffer first and most.”

The abject and deliberate failure of the Nigerian government to stand up for women and Christians has meant that massacre after massacre and assault after assault have become mere statistics. The death toll continues to rise, and each attack or assault tears through families and churches.

For Nigerian Christians, though, the stories behind these numbers are each a real person. Mothers and daughters, as well as sons and fathers, are lost to unending and unchecked violence.

The freedom women have in the West, and the rule of law that protects that freedom, are neither luxuries nor guarantees. These rights—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—are at the foundation of Western civilization and must be zealously guarded.

“Civilizations do not crumble all at once—they unravel at the margins. And women are often the earliest indicators of that unraveling,” wrote Mobbs and Jammullamudy.

The stories from women in Nigeria should be a warning: when anarchy reigns, women are some of the first—but not the last—victims.