The United States has listed Nigeria among 14 countries facing potential cuts to military assistance over the recruitment and use of child soldiers, a designation that could affect defence cooperation, military training and weapons sales.
The designation was contained in the US State Department’s 2026 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, published on October 11, which identified Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) as armed groups continuing to recruit, abduct and use children in Nigeria.
The report covers the period from April 1, 2025, to March 31, 2026, and places Nigeria on the Child Soldiers Prevention Act (CSPA) list alongside Afghanistan, Burma, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Iran, Russia, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Venezuela and Yemen.
Under the CSPA, countries on the list may face restrictions on certain forms of US security assistance and the commercial licensing of military equipment, subject to applicable exceptions, a presidential waiver or other provisions under the law.
The report stated that the restrictions would take effect from October 1, 2026, and apply throughout the relevant fiscal year unless an exemption or waiver was granted.
“The CSPA prohibits assistance to governments that are identified in the list under the following authorities: International Military Education and Training, Foreign Military Financing, Excess Defence Articles, and Peacekeeping Operations, with exceptions for some programs undertaken pursuant to the Peacekeeping Operations authority.
“The CSPA also prohibits the issuance of licenses for direct commercial sales of military equipment to such governments,” the report stated.
The designation comes amid continued security cooperation between Washington and Abuja, including joint efforts to combat terrorism and other security threats in Nigeria.
According to the report, Boko Haram and ISWAP continue to recruit, abduct and use children as young as 12 in various roles, including as cooks, domestic workers, spies, porters, messengers, bodyguards, checkpoint guards, armed combatants and suicide bombers.
The groups reportedly operate across Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger, subjecting children to physical and sexual abuse and forced drug use.
“Boko Haram and ISIS-West Africa continue recruiting, abducting, and using—including through force, fraud, and coercion—child soldiers as young as 12 years old as cooks, domestic workers, spies, porters, messengers, bodyguards or guards at checkpoints, ‘morality police,’ armed combatants, and suicide bombers in attacks in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, and Niger; these children are subjected to physical and sexual abuse and forced drug use,” the report stated.
The report also raised concerns over the abduction and exploitation of women and girls in northern Nigeria, including forced labour, domestic servitude, sexual slavery and forced marriage.
It alleged that Boko Haram had kidnapped thousands of women and girls and forced some into marriages, while punishing girls who refused to marry by compelling them to become suicide bombers.
Beyond insurgent groups, the report said criminal gangs in southern Nigeria recruit children for forced criminal activities, including kidnappings and robberies, while exploiting some in sex trafficking.
It also identified forced labour in agriculture and mining as a concern involving criminal gangs in the north-west.
Apart from the child-soldier designation, the report said Nigeria had failed to meet the minimum standards for eliminating trafficking for the 15th consecutive year, although it acknowledged some improvements in government funding and victim support.
The US State Department expressed concern over alleged official complicity in trafficking crimes, stating that the Nigerian government did not report investigations, prosecutions or convictions of public officials allegedly involved in such offences during the reporting period.
“The government did not report any investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of government employees allegedly complicit in trafficking crimes or provide details or other actions taken against complicit officials from previous years,” the report stated.
It added that “corruption and official complicity in trafficking crimes remained significant concerns.”
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