The below photo—a picture taken by Montana photographer Ami Vitale—has become associated with the viral #BringBackOurGirls campaign. The campaign is aimed at raising awareness about the nearly 300 Nigerian schoolgirls who were kidnapped by Boko Haram, a militant, anti-education group. There’s just one problem. The woman in the photo has not been abducted. She’s not even Nigerian. She’s from Guinea-Bissau, about 2,200 away from Nigeria, and the photo itself was taken way back in 2000, while Vitale was living in West Africa (see the rest of her work at The Alexia Foundation). “People trust us to come into their lives, and they share their stories with us, and when their images are used out of context like this, it’s just the worst,” Vitale told The Washington Post.
The photo picked up some steam after being tweeted by Chris Brown and the BBC, and is now a full-blown viral event. It appears that a Twitter user going by @imahephzibah was the first to re-appropriate Vitale’s work for the campaign …
