BiometricsForensic DNA technology could help identify abducted Nigerian girls
Forensic DNA technology developed in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks could be used to identify and reunite more than 200 Nigerian girls who were kidnapped by Islamist militants, scientists said. The software, Mass Fatality Identification System (M-FISys), has been used worldwide — in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Perú, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, among several other countries — to identify and return more than 700 children who were abducted by criminals for child trafficking.
Forensic DNA technology developed in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks could be used to identify and reunite more than 200 Nigerian girls who were kidnapped by Islamist militants, scientists said. The software, Mass Fatality Identification System (M-FISys), has been used worldwide to identify and return more than 700 children who were abducted by criminals for child trafficking.
Arthur Eisenberg, head of the Center for Human Identification (CHI) at the University of North Texas, said forensic scientists in the United States and Spain would provide the service free of charge. “We would do this absolutely for nothing,” said Eisenberg. “This is clearly a humanitarian effort.”
The CHI works with a ten-year-old international program called DNA-Prokids, which aims to reunite families and deter human trafficking.
Should the Nigerian government accept the assistance offered by Eisenberg and his fellow scientists, the first step would be for the girls’ family members to provide a DNA sample by swabbing inside their mouths with a cotton tip or providing a blood sample. Scientists would then establish DNA profiles of the families using M-FISys, the same software used to help forensic scientists match nearly 20,000 pieces of human remains to the more than 2,700 people who died in the Twin Towers.
M-FISys protects the identities of the missing by encrypting unidentified DNA profiles; this will help avoid potential diplomatic conflicts when cases cross borders. “No one is giving up any confidential information that they might not be able to under their local statutes,” M-FISys developer Howard Cash toldAFP. This capability is important because the girls may be sold as brides to Islamist fighters in Cameroon and Chad. If this does occur, then investigators may have to rely on civilians who encounter one of the kidnapped girls to take a DNA sample from her mouth, blood, or hair, and provide it to investigators who could then analyze the DNA to find a match with one of the missing girls’ relatives.
Eisenberg and DNA-Prokids founder Jose Lorente have offered to test the DNA samples in Spain or the United States if Nigerian authorities are unable to test the amount of DNA samples that may be submitted.
DNA-Prokids has helped identified lost children in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Perú, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, among several other countries.
