CHILD SOLDIERS AND HUMAN TRAFFICKING

The authorities must bulk up and tackle the problems

Even though there is no documented evidence of active recruitment of children by the Nigerian Armed Forces, the country may be sanctioned for its inability to prevent abductions and the continued use of minors by terrorist groups on its soil. And despite some significant improvement, Nigeria’s anti-trafficking record has yet to meet minimum standards for the 15th consecutive year. These observations are contained in the U.S. State Department’s 2026 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, which covers 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026. The report placed Nigeria in the same league with Afghanistan, Russia, Iran, South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and others, nations accused of recruiting and using child soldiers.

Nigeria’s indictment on Child Soldiers Prevention Act (CSPA) was triggered by the rampant recruitment and abduction of children by terrorist groups, particularly Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). The indictment could lead to potential cuts in military training, weapons sales, and defence cooperation, and restrict some of the gains in military assistance from the Trump administration in counterterrorism operations in the northeast. Besides, the report retained Nigeria on ‘Tier 2 Watch List,’ a category defined as countries whose governments do not fully meet the Trafficking Victims Protection Act minimum standards.

In the past decade, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has been strident that non-state armed groups are using Nigerian children as combatants and non-combatants, while committing other grave violations against them. When last the agency spoke about the boys and girls that have been recruited as child soldiers since 2009 by various armed groups, it described the situation as “unacceptable and unconscionable” while admonishing authorities in Nigeria to prioritise child protection and welfare policies through incentivised and compulsory basic education.

Ever since the beginning of insurgency in Nigeria, children have always been targeted by Boko Haram whose operatives have at different times abducted schoolgirls. Male children have also fallen into their traps. Boko Haram, ISWAP and other terror networks, including the bandits who operate from the Northwest zone of the country, target children because of their vulnerability. Driven mostly by poverty and lack of access to basic education and opportunities for self-development, many male children also volunteer for conscription. These children are susceptible to indoctrination and manipulation and less conscious of the danger of their choice. They are used not only to kill but also in many instances as spies, messengers, and sex slaves.

Conscripting children into these armed groups is not only a gross abuse of their innocence, but also a systematic destruction of the present and future of the country. Already, armed conflict situations have created children who are separated from their families, unprotected, starved, and exposed to violence as their only means of survival. Besides the mental and physical torture, exposing children to armed conflict increases their risk of morbidity and mortality. To worsen matters, hundreds of thousands of children die every day because of indirect effects of conflict – including malnutrition, disease, inadequate healthcare, and poor sanitation.

While Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno State once claimed that some foreign interests are sponsoring the Boko Haram terrorist group to recruit children as fighters, he also admitted that high unemployment rate, poverty, poor social infrastructure, fuel these recruitments. A chaotic society accentuates human vulnerabilities, particularly among under-age people. The surge of child soldiers in a country with almost half its population living below the poverty line is predictable.

Even though National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) and others are doing their best to contain the crime, their best is not good enough. Women and girls are still being trafficked to Europe for sex work, while within the country, thousands of children are shipped from the rural areas to urban centres, more as domestic slaves. And as rightly stated, criminal gangs run baby factories as orphanages or maternity homes where women are held against their will, raped, and forced to deliver children who are sold as commodities. Nigeria has for a long time become a source, transit, and destination for trafficking, as it last attained the top Tier 1 ranking in 2011.

Besides enforcing the Child Rights Act, which has been domesticated in most states, much more needs to be done to return the country to the path of sanity. A chaotic and poverty-wracked society accentuates human vulnerabilities, particularly among under-age people.