Comfort Mark was involved in community evangelization programs. csi
Comfort Mark, a Christian health worker in northern Nigeria, freed young Christian girls who had been abducted to marry Muslim men. Instead of her work being recognized by the local government when she brought them home, she was falsely accused of human trafficking and jailed.
In the 12 northern Nigerian states that have adopted Islamic sharia law, minor Christian girls risk being abducted, forcibly converted to Islam and then married off to older Muslim men. In Borno State in particular, a campaign to abduct underaged Christian girls has gained momentum. It is yet another form of persecution of Christians who have for years been subject to attacks and kidnappings by Islamist terrorist groups including Boko Haram.
Female children of pastors and church leaders appear to be specifically targeted for abduction. With no government recourse, those who want to take action on their own know that they, like Comfort, risk heavy punishment. The signal is clear: non-Muslim groups cannot expect protection under the law.
Marriages sanctioned by Islamic law
Victims can expect no support from the judiciary and police. On the contrary, those who try to help the victims risk prosecution.
Christian parents whose daughters have been kidnapped may receive a summons from the magistrates’ courts where they are simply told that their daughters have converted to Islam and been given in marriage. According to Islamic law, they are now under the custody of an Islamic cleric. The parents are expected to simply accept this and walk away. Their consent is not required, contrary to Nigerian norms, customs and traditions.
Sometimes the girls appear at these magistrates’ or sharia court hearings. If they do, they are not allowed to say a word, or to meet or speak with their parents afterwards.
Comfort Mark and the search for victims
Comfort Mark, who was known to CSI’s partner, was a health worker at a private clinic in Maiduguri, the state capital of Borno State in the northeast. She was also a missionary and evangelist who led a small mission team that went into rural communities in northeastern Nigeria to teach villagers basic healthcare.
When concerns arose regarding the kidnapping, forceful conversion and sexual abuse of Christian girls, Comfort and a small group of Christian women decided to investigate. The team dressed in traditional Muslim garb, covering their faces, and went into the communities where it was believed that the girls were being held.
Comfort would seek out the abducted girls and when she found them, she then would let their families know where they were.
Case of abducted girl Mary
Mary (not her real name), the 17-year-old daughter of a church leader, was one of those who disappeared. Her parents searched for her in vain for months. Then rumors reached them that she had been seen in the home of a Muslim family. Comfort, with the help of her team, was able to locate the girl in a Maiduguri community where she paid her a visit. As custom dictates, Mary saw Comfort off after her visit, walking part of the way back with her. Mary was then met by the other team members who took her away in their vehicle.
Comfort kept Mary – who was pregnant – in her home for a couple of days and informed her parents that their daughter had been found. They then collected her. But after Mary ended her pregnancy, her parents turned her out of her home and she returned to stay with Comfort.
Comfort accused of human trafficking
When Mary’s Muslim “husband” found out that she had been taken by Comfort he called the police who arrested Comfort.
Mary was also questioned by the police and narrated her experience of her abduction, forceful conversion and sexual abuse by her Muslim captor.
Rather than opening a case against the Muslim man for kidnapping, sexual abuse of a minor and unlawful detention, the police took Comfort into detention on suspicion of human trafficking. They further paraded her with other crime suspects on state television. But Comfort’s case never came to court as the police had no evidence.
Comfort spent six weeks in a prison cell in deplorable conditions. When friends and family members visited her, she pleaded with them not to expose the group, according to CSI’s partner. “The police were saying that they were told I was leading a group of infidels going round and taking away girls that had converted to Islam,” she told them. “They said they will use me to fish out the rest of the group. So please just let me be here. Let them do whatever they want to do but please don’t put yourselves at risk because they want to come after all of us.”
Lawyer afraid to take on the case
A lawyer was initially contacted to defend Comfort but then turned the case down after discovering that the police commissioner was interested in it. “This is beyond my capacity, I do not want to go against the Muslims, I don’t want to be debarred,” the lawyer said.
Following pressure from prominent church leaders in Maiduguri the policed eventually released Comfort on bail, warning her not to travel out of the state.
But the conditions of her detention took a severe toll on her health. Comfort became very sick and died on May 12, 2022, two days after being hospitalized.
Lives ruined by “social jihad”
“The incessant kidnapping of Christian girls and the forceful conversion to Islam is another form of Jihad in the 21st century,” wrote the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in a warning to Christian families issued in 2018. “They have two major aims for doing that: To inflict pain on the parents of the girl and the Christian community; and to impregnate the girl to add to their claims that Islam is the fasted growing religion in the world.”
And cases of abduction and forcible marriage are on the rise, CAN warned at a press conference in July 2024.
Observers say that Muslims are aware that abortion is a taboo in most Christian families. When a Christian girl is raped and becomes pregnant, she will have to give birth to the child. And when she does, the Muslim abductor will approach the family claiming to be the father and offering to care for the child.
In this way, a bloodline is forcibly established with the Christian family. The abductors know that it will be very difficult for a young woman with a child to find a Christian husband. She will have to choose between going back to her abuser or living with the stigma of having a child by a Muslim man in a Christian community.
The lives of many teenage Christian girls have been ruined by this “social jihad.”
