Too often, when there's a tragedy in Africa, or other far corners of the globe, we turn our heads away. We may not say it, but we think it: It has nothing to do with us.
"There's nothing we can do," we say, or, "The problems are just too intractable."
Why has it been so different with the 276 girls abducted from the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Nigeria?
So many of us can't get them out of our minds, our hearts.
A global crusade has been launched under a very modern banner--the Twitter hashtag BringBackOurGirls.
Amnesty International has launched an online petition urging "the Nigerian authorities to work to secure the safe release of the girls and to ensure that the perpetrators of this attack are brought to justice."
"They are my sisters," said Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, who became an international symbol of courage after being shot in the head by the Taliban.
Malala, like the Nigerian women, was punished by extremists for the simple "crime" of wanting an education.
The world has witnessed the sickening videos of a man claiming to be Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau as he boasts, "I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market, by Allah."
He grinned wildly as he said, "There is a market for selling humans. Allah says I should sell. He commands me to sell. I will sell women. I sell women."
The brazen, crazed video captured the world's attention.
But we should have been outraged long ago by Boko Haram's atrocities, according to Mark Ensalaco, associate professor at the University of Dayton and director of the human rights studies program.
"Slavery is rampant in Africa," Ensalaco said. "The abduction of girls and sexual enslavement is a very large problem."
Boko Haram has long been a terrible menace in Nigeria, committing acts of terror and indiscriminate killings, Ensalaco said, but the United States has paid scant attention because we have never been a colonial power like France and Belgium. "This has caused global outrage in a way that even the terrorism does not," he said. "This is shocking, to see the mass abductions of innocent girls and to have Boko Haram justify their actions by saying that God wants us to sell them. This must compel the global community. This is a whole new dimension. This strikes parents to their core."
Every parent in every country can identify with the Nigerians' heartbreak.
But there is a broader reason for the way this tragedy resonates with us. Is it such a remote phenomenon, the way that Boko Haram sees women as nothing more than property, as chattel?
Human trafficking happens here, too. How many women are ensnared by the sex trade in the United States? How many illegal immigrants are trapped in grueling jobs?
The same CNN Anderson 360 segment featured the Nigerian schoolgirls as well as Michelle Knight, held captive for 11 years in Cleveland by Ariel Castro.
Editorial on 05/13/2014