On 14 April, around 300 girls were abducted from a school in Chibok, Nigeria. On 7 May, a further eight girls were kidnapped int the village of Warabe. The reason? They had the audacity to get an education, something which their aggressors, terrorist group Boko Haram, denounce. It's a chilling echo of the ideological reasoning that lay behind the shooting of 15-year-old Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai back in 2012: she dared to champion girls’ education; the Taliban shot her in the head. If there's anything the last years have taught us, it's that any girl is who has the opportunity to go to school and stay there until she chooses to leave must, even in this day and age, be considered lucky.

The Nigerian kidnapping, Malala's heroic stand against the Taliban: these are the stories that make the headlines, and they are devastating in their own right. They are stories of the violent removal of girls from education, and they demand attention. Perhaps equally devastating, however, is the fact they are the tip of the iceberg.

Immense progress has been made for the education of girls in the past ten years, but they continue to fall behind their male counterparts in many parts of the world. Girls are still significantly less likely to go to school or complete their education, and are more likely to be illiterate. Indeed, one in five girls worldwide are denied schooling, according to children’s development organisation Plan, and the overwhelming majority of them face barriers that are far more mundane than violent attacks based in extremist ideology.

Domestic duties are habitually thrust upon girls at a young age. In countries where conflict rages or disease is prevalent, orphaned daughters can be left caring for their siblings. In other instances, girls leave school to marry and have children. Indeed, a third of girls in developing countries marry before the age of eighteen, and a third give birth before the age of twenty. In these situations, education becomes impractical. At least as often, however, it simply boils down to poverty. A girl may work in the home so that her parents can go out and earn money, or she may pay the price for her brother’s education. With books, uniforms, and bus fares, even a free education can prove costly, and where children are numerous, sons will almost invariably be chosen over daughters.

The instances of girls being denied an education which are reported by the media are not the extent of the problem: millions of girls are affected by this issue on a daily basis, though not in the shocking, violent manner of the stories that do make it to our headlines. As a result, these girls are becoming invisible; removing them from education has left them silenced and disempowered.

When girls do go to school, they are less likely to marry and have children at a young age, and are more likely to be healthy and literate. Their life expectancies are longer, and their children are more likely to survive. In addition, they are more likely to break out of the cycle of poverty, and earn money which can be invested back into their countries' economies. Indeed, some of the most successful development efforts have been based around microcredit lending to women in developing communities, and, in fact, many development charities lend exclusively to women. If this is true for women who are overcoming barriers such as illiteracy, think what they could do if their way to education had been better paved.

From improved individual welfare to healthier national economies, the arguments for getting girls into school and keeping them there could not be stronger. It is absolutely right that we get angry about the case of the Nigerian students; everything possible should be done to bring them back, and to halt the murderous rampage of Boko Haram. But instead of letting this terrible event obscure the trend of which it is a part, let these girls be the public face of an issue which goes far deeper than this attack. Yes, please, please, please #BringBackOurGirls, but please let us also allow this tragedy to open our eyes to the millions of girls all over the world for whom education is but a distant dream.