The United States (U.S) has placed Nigeria on its list of countries recruiting or using child soldiers, a designation that could restrict certain forms of American military assistance unless a presidential waiver is granted.
The listing appears in the U.S Department of State’s 2026 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, which covers the period from April 1, 2025, to March 31, 2026.
Nigeria is one of 14 countries identified to be recruiting child soldiers under the Child Soldiers Prevention Act (CSPA).
The others are Afghanistan, Burma (Myanmar), the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Iran, Russia, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Venezuela and Yemen.
According to the report, restrictions under the CSPA could apply to international military education and training (IMET), foreign military financing, excess defence articles, peacekeeping operations support, and licences for direct commercial sales of military equipment.
These measures would take effect from the start of the relevant U.S fiscal period unless the U.S President Donald Trump determines that a waiver is in the national interest and certifies that the government is taking effective steps to address the problem.
The report noted that the reason Nigeria emerged on the list of countries recruiting child soldiers is primarily due to non-state armed groups operating in Nigeria, notably Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP, also referred to as ISIS-West Africa).
It stated that these groups recruit, abduct or coerce children as young as 12 through force, fraud or coercion. The children are used in a range of roles, including as cooks, domestic workers, spies, porters, messengers, bodyguards, checkpoint guards, morality police, armed combatants and suicide bombers.
U.S law defines a child soldier to include persons under 18 who directly participate in hostilities, those under 15 who are voluntarily recruited into armed forces, and persons under 18 recruited by armed groups distinct from a country’s state armed forces for support roles or other forms of exploitation.
Also, the report retained Nigeria on Tier 2, a category defined as countries whose governments do not fully meet the Trafficking Victims Protection Act minimum standards but were making significant efforts to meet the requirements.
The State Department, however, noted that the government demonstrated increasing efforts, including investigations, prosecutions, and convictions, compared with the previous reporting period and retained the country on Tier 2.
On recruiting child soldiers in Nigeria, the report stated that “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.”
The report also said 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.
“Sources reported Nigeria’s Ministry of Education helped promote Russia’s Alabuga Start program despite red flags.
“Russian authorities fraudulently recruit and use Nigerians to fight in the Russia-Ukraine war. North Korean nationals working in Nigeria may be operating under exploitative working conditions and display multiple indicators of forced labour. Chinese nationals working in Nigeria may have been forced to work by the Chinese government,” it added.
Furthermore, the report stated that illicit actors operate ‘baby factories’, which were often disguised as orphanages, maternity homes, or religious center where traffickers hold women against their will, rape them, and force them to carry and deliver a child.
“They then sell the children… The government and NGOs describe the factories as a widespread criminal industry most prevalent in the southern part of the country.
“Traffickers exploit children in sex trafficking and forced labour, including in granite quarries and artisanal mines, domestic work, begging, street vending, textile manufacturing, and agriculture. Traffickers exploit adults and children in forced labor on cocoa farms.
“Some corrupt Quranic school teachers exploit children, mostly boys from rural areas, in forced labour in begging and seasonal agricultural work.
“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,’’ the report stated.
Despite the barrage of indictments, the report acknowledged several strides made by the government in arresting trafficking.
It noted that the government investigated 1,341 trafficking cases involving 1,367 suspects, prosecuted 94 suspects, convicted 97 traffickers in 2025, an increase from 744 investigations, 71 prosecutions and 49 convictions in 2024.
The report said the government also sentenced the majority of convicted traffickers to at least one year imprisonment and increased funding for victim services.
In 2025, it said the government allocated N233 million ($161,000) for victim services, up from N128 million, while N245 million ($169,000) was allocated for prevention, up from N58.8 million in 2024.
The government, it said, established a cybercrime unit within the police to combat online scam operations and cooperated with other governments and INTERPOL on investigations in West Africa and Southeast Asia.
It further identified 2,004 victims, maintained SOPs and National Referral Mechanism, coordinated repatriation of 428 Nigerian victims exploited abroad.
The report added the government issued restitution for 14 victims as part of criminal sentences and continued to implement the 2022-2026 National Action Plan, operated an anti-trafficking hotline, conducted public awareness, and had anti-trafficking task forces in 23 states.
