A mother of one of the kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls.

A mother of one of the kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls.

It’s been three weeks since over 200 schoolgirls were abducted from their beds by the terrorist group Boko Haram (who today claimed responsibility for the abductions in a harrowing video where the group smiles and laughs as they tell the world that they plan to “sell” the girls).

The story broke, then went silent. As days turned into weeks where the girls remained captive, Nigerians kept asking why there were no visible moves or coherent strategy from their Government to apprehend the abductors and bring the young women home. As traditional media failed to adequately engage with the story, Nigerians turned to social media. The hashtag #BringOurGirlsBack was born, and today it’s been trending on twitter: everyone from Sophia Bush to Hillary Clinton to Piers Morgan have been tweeting expressing their outrage over the fact that these girls have been allowed to remain abducted for three weeks.

Some voices in the media have compared the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag to #KONY2012. Both of these campaigns have started conversations. For #KONY2012 it was a conversation that led to life-saving strides forward stopping the violence of Joseph Kony’s LRA. The fact that #KONY2012 went viral on social media doesn’t reflect the true success of the film. The real success was that awareness was translated to action. For example, 3.6 million signed pledged and thousands gathered in Washington DC to lobby their policymakers, ultimately resulting in President Obama signing The Rewards for Justice Legislation – a law that allows the U.S. government to offer monetary rewards for information leading to the arrest of Joseph Kony and other ICC-indicted leaders of the LRA. Another example is the thousands of small fundraisers that raised enough money to fund the expansion of our Early Warning Network. This network means that 74 isolated communities in central Africa are no longer vulnerable to the attacks of the LRA. This is action that is directly preventing LRA abductions that have parallels to the activity of Boko Haram. We are not experts on the politics of Nigeria, or this particular issue: we now have to be led by experts that can turn public support into tangible results that could bring these girls home. A hashtag alone isn’t enough- but we know it can be a catalyst for transformative action.

We’d been working on the LRA issue for 8 years when KONY 2012 went viral, and we’ll keep working to end the conflict until every LRA captive is free. #BringBackOurGirls has started a convicted conversation, but that conversation needs to result in expert-led action.

See what KONY 2012 has helped us achieve

(Picture credit)