 I'm here today with Esther Abanga, who is from Nigeria and is a Christian pastor. Pastor Esther leads an organization called Women Without Walls in Plateau State, which has seen a lot of violence. And through this organization, she has worked tirelessly to bring an end to the violence and to protect and empower girls and women who have suffered particular challenges with the rise of various forms of extremist violence throughout the country. So we have a few questions for you today, Pastor Esther. One is I want to note, congratulations, you are recently awarded the prestigious Noano Peace Prize, which is awarded every year by a Japanese Buddhist organization to recognize a religious peace builder of distinction. And you are awarded this for your efforts to work across religious lines of difference in northern Nigeria to prevent violence and extremism and to protect and empower girls and women. So I wonder if you could begin by please telling us a little bit about your approach to that work. Okay, thank you very much, Susan, for having me here. Like you must have known, Plateau State and in particular the city of Joss has been embroiled in religious violence and conflicts for the past three decades almost. And we originally were totally uninvolved as women. But in 2010 a village close to where I lived was attacked by militants and they killed about 530 women and children. And that became a turning point for me. And so I got together with some Christian women and I felt it was time to step out of church and onto the street. And so we led a protest rally to the government and there were about 100,000 women that came out. The Muslim woman responded that their own people were killed as well, which was true. You know, and they had their own rally. We had our two rallies and the killings did not stop. So I decided to reach out to the Muslim woman because I felt the issues were not really religious. They were political, but religion was used as a powerful tool. And I felt we must bring down the wall of religion because religion divides, but it can also ignite. And so I reached out to my Muslim counterpart and we formed one Women Without Walls Initiative. And so we took a common stand to refuse to allow religion to be used to perpetrate evil. And so we decided to work with young people that are prone to violence and also quite vulnerable to recruitment by extremists. We decided to work with them and our thinking is if we can reduce the pool of recruits, that way we would control the number of people that are radicalized or are given to terrorism. And so we started to work with four volatile communities with the young people, basically engaging them, talking with them and seeing how we can get them productively engaged. So they can say no to violence. So one aspect of your identity is that you're a woman, but another aspect that sets you apart is that you're a religious leader. And I wonder if you can share with us what you think religious leaders are particularly well situated to do to prevent and counter extremism. And then also what role women clergy might play that is different from male religious leaders. Okay, maybe I'll start with your second question, women clergy, because initially it wasn't an accepted thing in my society. And also, well culturally and also within the religious circle, they believe a woman should be seen and not heard. Having said that, we now got, by the grace of God, a place where we are respected in the community because we have proven our worth. So when this issue of countering extremist violence came, you know, and I found myself pushed into it because like I said initially I wasn't involved. But when they killed those women and children, I said, no, there's no way I can sit down and let that happen. So we came out. What that has done is for the first time religious actors are seen to be actively involved outside of the church, stepping out of the church, coming into the society, coming into the level of the society to bring solutions to our social problems. And I think that's very important because for too long we've been locked up in the church. Light is meant for the dark. It's meant for the dark places. It's meant for darkness. So we need to step out into the dark arenas and bring light. And I think that's where the religious leaders have a major role to play. And that we have done in engaging these young people, who have been able to counsel, to love and to pray with these young people. For me, this is the greatest part of my ministry, not the 20 years that I've been in church, but actually going on the street and seeing lives change and transform. The greatest testimony I have is a couple of months after we started, one of the Muslim boys in the community sent me a text and he said, mother, I want you to know that I love you. And I've treasured that text. I have refused to delete it. It's in my phone till this day. And I've never preached to him. I've never said come and be a Christian or anything. But for a Muslim boy to call me mother, for me is the greatest blessing of how religious leaders, if they play it right, they can have a very positive impact on the society as a whole. But particularly on the group of young people, who are prone to, you know, violence or radicalism or extremism, we need to really focus on that group of people because they are needy. That's where a lot of the religious leaders and prophets and the people from our religious traditions that we held with us, they all spent time in the world, not inside walls. So I know we have Nigeria's elections coming up and your work has put pressure on some of Nigeria's government and worked closely with the police to help counter Boko Haram and other extremist groups in Nigeria. What will the new government need to do to address the threat in Nigeria? And what do you think can be done to help prevent election-related violence from taking place? Since we started engaging the communities, we've not built a relationship with them and they've basically become partners with us all the young people there. So this year, when the election date was initially fixed, about some time in January, the yields from a particular volatile community came to me and they said to me, Pastor Esther, I want you and the women to come to our community and do a campaign against election violence. We know that if you come and talk to us, the young people will listen to you. So this time around, we're not going, they're actually coming and inviting us. I mean that was such a breakthrough for me, I was so excited. I think they are all looking for solutions. The population, the society, they want answers, they want peace, they want to move on with their lives. There are multifaceted factors that have been given as to why Boko Haram has strived in Nigeria for so long. I think the fundamental issue has been the willpower for the government to actually take a decisive action. I think the government has allowed it to go on for so long, maybe because of political considerations and of course there's also the issue of corruption. Nigeria is the biggest country in Africa, one of the biggest population in the world, the seventh biggest. How can we have an army that cannot contend? How did we get here? How did we let it go this far? So I really think that the next government that's coming, this is the, for me, this is the item number one on their table, they need to deal with this. And it can be dealt with as long as the political will is there and they're sincere. And they work closely with civil society leaders. And thank you for keeping that in mind. Absolutely. And the work with civil society leaders, you're so right. I have one final question for you. You have participated in the last couple years with the USIP's Women Preventing Extremist Violence Program and you've been here in Washington D.C. over the past few days engaging with women leaders from throughout the world, including countries that are very different from Nigeria who are addressing similar issues. I wonder if you can share with us a little bit about what you've learned through the program or how the program has benefited you in your work and also what you've learned engaging with these other women leaders from around the world in the past few days. It's really been a fantastic opportunity for me to be here in USIP and there's always so much to learn from other people. And I have learned a lot in engaging with the women from Indonesia, Pakistan and India and Kenya, you know. Some of the things I have learned is the power of using not just the social media but media is a very, very powerful tool in maybe increasing the spread of our work and what we do. So I really think that, for example, the lady from India talked about her radio program, you know, and how she has used it effectively for women to send out the right messages, you know. And that's something I think we can bring on board in the Nigerian instance. And also in engaging with the police, you know, I have found out that in certain instances they have taken it a step further to parliament, you know. And I think that's what we need to start considering in Nigeria as well. We are inspired by your work and the work that you're doing with your Christian and Muslim sisters and brothers in Nigeria. Thank you so much. I appreciate you having me here.