SOMETIMES, we live our lives completely closeted.

That’s what we do in the west. World events happen around us and, while we notice them, while we take on board what is happening – wars, deaths, extreme weather devastation – it doesn’t really affect what we do on a regular basis, so we don’t act on it.

Three weeks ago, in Nigeria, 230 schoolgirls were abducted by Islamist insurgents. The mass kidnapping of the 16 to 18 year olds has shocked Nigerians, a nation largely dulled to the violence that has ravaged the north-east of the area for five years.

Families are distraught, not knowing what has happened to their precious daughters: whether they are safe, whether they are harmed.

Indeed, recent reports are now indicating that the schoolgirls are being forced to marry their kidnappers.

And as devastating as this is, the problem is being exasperated by the fact that the Nigerian government has done little to intervene, refusing, even, to provide assistance when approached by the girls’ parents for help.

Now, you may read this and be rightly shocked. And then you may return to your cuppa, to your daily routine, and the plight of these schoolgirls may be forgotten.

But, this time, try to take a second to imagine something: what if this happened here, in Gloucestershire? What if a class of girls were abducted from a school where we live, say in Yate, Dursley, Thornbury? If the kidnap occurred here, we know what would happen: something would be done about it.

Immediately, the government would issue orders to find the girls and free them. We have MI5, GCHQ, secret services, police, the army all at our disposal, and without a doubt they would be used to rescue the girls.

And we, as a nation, would demand something be done, fast. And yet the Nigerian schoolgirls have been missing for three weeks – three weeks – at the time of this going to press, and little as happened.

The only thing that separates us from Nigeria is sea and land, after that we are all the same; and that means we deserve the same.

So let us shout. Let us lobby. You can sign a petition for their release at www.change.org. Let us demand that these girls are rescued.

And let us never ever forget that a world exists out there and we have a responsibility to it.