Nick Cohen points out – as I’ve been pointing out – that the Nigerian schoolgirls haven’t been kidnapped but enslaved. They weren’t just yanked away to be hostages or bargining chips or shields, but to be sexual slaves and, no doubt, labor slaves as well.

A desire for sexual supremacy accompanies their loathing of knowledge. They take 220 schoolgirls as slaves and force them to convert to their version of Islam. They either rape them or sell them on for £10 or so to new masters. The girls are the victims of slavery, child abuse and forced marriage. Their captors are by extension slavers and rapists.

As you can see, English does not lack plain words to describe the foulness of the crimes in Nigeria, and no doubt they would be used in the highly improbable event of western soldiers seizing and selling women.

And now, according to AFP, Goodluck Jonathan is finally doing more than handwaving. Global pressure works, people!

Anger at the government’s ineffectual response has fuelled protests at home and abroad, including in New York where dozens of Nigerians staged a protest march on Saturday demanding action to free the children.

Mr Jonathan held closed-door talks with military and security service chiefs as well as senior officials, Borno state’s governor and police chief, and the head of the school in Chibok where the girls were seized, Reuben Abati told reporters.

Under pressure over the mass abduction, it was the first time the Nigerian leader brought together all key players involved in the search.

“The president has given very clear directives that everything must be done to ensure that these girls must be brought back to safety,” Mr Abati said.

Until now Mr Jonathan had only conferred with his security chiefs.

Good; now hurry up.