Trending 
The United States has placed Nigeria on its Child Soldiers Prevention Act blacklist, a designation that could lead to cuts in military training, weapons sales, foreign military financing and defence cooperation from October 1, 2026, unless President Donald Trump issues a waiver.
The listing follows the State Department’s 2026 Trafficking in Persons Report, which cited the continued recruitment and use of children by Boko Haram and ISIS-West Africa on Nigerian soil.
The report, published on October 11, covers April 1, 2025, to March 31, 2026. It places Nigeria among 14 nations, including Russia, Iran, South Sudan and Somalia, accused of recruiting or using child soldiers.
The report also found that Nigeria’s anti-trafficking performance failed to meet minimum standards for the 15th consecutive year.
What the CSPA listing means
“Governments identified on the list are subject to restrictions, in the following fiscal year, on certain security assistance and commercial licensing of military equipment,” the report said.
The CSPA prohibits assistance under International Military Education and Training, Foreign Military Financing, Excess Defence Articles and Peacekeeping Operations, with exceptions for some peacekeeping programmes.
It also bars licences for direct commercial sales of military equipment.
“Beginning October 1, 2026, and effective throughout Fiscal Year 2026, these restrictions will apply to the listed countries, absent a presidential waiver, applicable exception, or reinstatement of assistance pursuant to the terms of the CSPA,” the report read.
The blacklisting comes in the wake of an ongoing US-Nigeria security partnership, after the Trump administration deployed Navy SEAL Team 6 alongside Nigerian forces for joint counterterrorism operations in the northeast and formalised the bilateral 2026 Defence Cooperation Roadmap.
Official complicity unpunished
The report said no government official was prosecuted for complicity in trafficking despite acknowledged corruption.
“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,” it stated, adding that “corruption and official complicity in trafficking crimes remained significant concerns.”
It further noted, “Observers reported some law enforcement, military, and other government officials reportedly committed trafficking crimes, accepted bribes to facilitate trafficking, or obstructed justice by interfering with investigations.”
Credit: Reuters.
Victim assistance
Nigerian authorities investigated 1,341 trafficking cases — 589 sex trafficking, 301 forced labour and 451 unspecified — involving 1,367 suspects. Of those, 94 were prosecuted and 97 convicted.
The US acknowledged that “the majority of those convicted received prison sentences of at least one year” and that officials increased collaboration with foreign governments, leading to operations across West Africa and Southeast Asia with INTERPOL.
However, while 2,004 victims were identified — 893 sex trafficking and 1,111 forced labour — only 675 received government-supported assistance, down from 2,058 the previous year.
The report criticised NAPTIP’s closed-shelter policy, noting that “residents were not allowed freedom of movement, including children’s access to school,” and that “access to some protection services was tied to victims’ willingness to cooperate with law enforcement proceedings.”
Adult victims who declined shelter were not offered alternative services, and “only one dedicated NGO shelter was available for adult male trafficking survivors.”
Child recruitment by armed groups
On the CSPA listing, the report identified Boko Haram and ISIS-West Africa as responsible for child recruitment.
“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,” it said.
It added that the groups abduct women and girls in northern Nigeria for forced labour and sexual slavery, and that “in many cases, the government coerces victims of forced marriage, including trafficking victims, to return to their Boko Haram husbands in Borno State demobilisation centres.”
Criminal gangs in the south use children for kidnappings and robberies and exploit them in sex trafficking, while gangs in the northwest exploit victims in agricultural and mining labour.
Other findings
On labour trafficking, the report said the government “did not prohibit worker-paid recruitment fees,” “did not report holding labour recruiters liable civilly and criminally for fraudulent recruitment,” and “did not provide specialised training on child labour and human trafficking to labour inspectors.”
It added that “the government did not provide anti-trafficking training to its diplomatic personnel.”
The report also cited foreign criminal networks using Nigeria as an arena: “Highly organised foreign criminal syndicates fraudulently recruit foreigners to Nigeria with promises of employment, confine them in leased properties and compel them to participate in organised online scams.”
It alleged that “Russian authorities fraudulently recruit and use Nigerians to fight in the Russia-Ukraine war” and that Nigeria’s Ministry of Education “helped promote” Russia’s Alabuga Start programme “despite warning signs.”
It also raised concern that “North Korean nationals working in Nigeria may be operating under exploitative conditions displaying indicators of forced labour.”
On “baby factories”, criminal enterprises disguised as orphanages, maternity homes or religious centres where women are held, raped and forced to deliver children who are then sold, the report described them as concentrated predominantly in the south.
