Nigeria has been accused of pushing forced-marriage victims back to Boko Haram husbands in demobilisation centres despite claims of fighting modern slavery and sexual exploitation, according to the U.S. 2026 Trafficking in Persons report.
“The government coerces victims of forced marriage, including trafficking victims, to return to their Boko Haram husbands in Borno State demobilisation centres,” the report stated.
Peoples Gazette has contacted the presidency and the Nigerian Army for comments.
The report pointed out that Boko Haram and ISIS-West Africa kidnapped and subjected thousands of women and girls to forced marriage, including for sexual slavery and forced labour.
It also noted that these groups had continued to recruit, abduct, and use—including through force, fraud, and coercion—child soldiers as young as 12 years old as cooks, domestic workers, spies and others, noting these children were subjected to physical and sexual abuse and forced drug use.
“Boko Haram punishes girls, including for refusing to marry, by forcing them to be suicide bombers. These non-state armed groups continue to abduct women and girls in the northern regions of Nigeria, many of whom they exploit in forced labour, including in domestic servitude, and in sexual slavery,” it added.
According to the report, criminal gangs in the south recruited and used children in forced criminality, including kidnappings and robberies, and exploit them in sex trafficking.
It added that criminal gangs in the North-West also exploit victims in forced labour in agriculture and mining.
Noting that organised trafficking networks transported Nigerian women and girls to mining regions in Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Côte d’Ivoire for exploitation in sex trafficking, the report revealed that in some states, families “sell” women and girls into forced marriages to older men to repay family debt in the traditional practice of “money marriages”, increasing vulnerability to trafficking.
“Highly organised foreign criminal syndicates fraudulently recruit foreign victims for work in Nigeria, confine them in leased properties, and force them to conduct organised online scams against international targets,” it added.
It added that while Nigeria did not fully meet the minimum standards for eliminating trafficking, the country was making significant efforts to do so.
The TIP report said the country remained on Tier 2, adding that the government demonstrated increasing efforts, including investigations, prosecutions, and convictions, compared with the previous reporting period.
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