The United States government has indicted Nigeria for failing to meet minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking, citing corruption, official complicity, and a failure to prosecute complicit officials.
The report also listed Nigeria among 14 countries recruiting and using child soldiers.
These findings are contained in the 2026 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, which covers the period from April 1, 2025, to March 31, 2026.
The report retained Nigeria on Tier 2, a category for countries whose governments do not fully meet the Trafficking Victims Protection Act’s minimum standards but are making significant efforts to comply.
It also placed Nigeria on the Child Soldiers Prevention Act (CSPA) list, alongside Afghanistan, Burma, the Central African Republic, the DRC, Ethiopia, Iran, Russia, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Venezuela, and Yemen.
According to the U.S. Department of State, CSPA restrictions—affecting international military education and training, foreign military financing, excess defense articles, peacekeeping operations, and commercial military sales licenses—will apply to Nigeria starting October 1, 2026, unless the president issues a waiver.
However, the State Department noted that the Nigerian government demonstrated increased efforts, including more investigations, prosecutions, and convictions, compared to the previous reporting period, which factored into retaining the country on Tier 2.
The indictments
Highlighting that corruption and official complicity remain significant concerns, the U.S. report stated: “The government did not report any investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of government employees allegedly complicit in trafficking crimes, or provide details on actions taken against complicit officials from previous years.”
The report also stated that in many cases, authorities coerced victims of forced marriage, including trafficking victims, to return to their Boko Haram husbands in Borno State demobilization centers.
Criticizing the government’s failure to protect victims, the report noted that only 675 trafficking victims received assistance in 2025, down from 2,058 the previous year. Services, particularly for male victims, remained severely limited, with only one dedicated NGO shelter for adult male victims operating during the year.
“NAPTIP’s shelters did not permit residents freedom of movement. The government required victims to cooperate in law enforcement proceedings to access certain protection services,” the report noted.
‘’The government did not provide services to adult victims who declined shelter services, increasing their vulnerability.”
“The government did not have a formal policy to prevent the removal of victims to countries where they would face hardship or retribution.”
“Unlike the previous year, the government did not report transferring any children associated with non-state armed groups,” it added.
Weak labour protection
The report further alleged that the government “did not prohibit worker-paid recruitment fees… did not report holding labour recruiters civilly and criminally liable for fraudulent recruitment, and did not provide specialized training on child labour and human trafficking to labour inspectors. The government did not provide anti-trafficking training to its diplomatic personnel.”
On child soldiers, 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 defines a child soldier to include any person under 18 who takes a direct part in hostilities, any person under 15 voluntarily recruited, or any person under 18 recruited by armed forces distinct from the state, including those serving as cooks, porters, messengers, medics, guards, or sex slaves.
Foreign exploitation and new trends
According to the report, highly organized foreign criminal syndicates fraudulently recruit foreign nationals for work in Nigeria, confine them in leased properties, and force them to run online scams.
“Sources reported that 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,” the report stated.
Baby factories, forced labour, and sex trafficking
The report highlighted illicit operations known as ‘baby factories,’ often disguised as orphanages, maternity homes, or religious centers, where traffickers hold women against their will, rape them, and force them to carry and deliver children.
“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, artisanal mines, domestic work, begging, street vending, textile manufacturing, and agriculture. Traffickers exploit adults and children in forced labour on cocoa farms.”
“Some corrupt Quranic school teachers exploit children, mostly boys from rural areas, in forced labour through begging and seasonal agricultural work.”
“In some states, families sell women and girls into forced marriages to older men to repay family debts under the traditional practice of ‘money marriages,’” the report stated.
The positives
Despite the heavy criticism, the report acknowledged several strides made by the Nigerian government in combating trafficking.
It noted that the government investigated 1,341 trafficking cases involving 1,367 suspects, prosecuted 94 suspects, and convicted 97 traffickers in 2025—an increase from 744 investigations, 71 prosecutions, and 49 convictions in 2024.
The report added that the government sentenced the majority of convicted traffickers to at least one year in prison and increased funding for victim services.
In 2025, the government allocated ₦233 million ($161,000) for victim services, up from ₦128 million the previous year, while allocations for prevention rose to ₦245 million ($169,000) from ₦58.8 million in 2024.
Additionally, the government established a cybercrime unit within the police to combat online scam operations and cooperated with foreign governments and INTERPOL on investigations across West Africa and Southeast Asia.
Authorities also identified 2,004 victims, maintained standard operating procedures and a National Referral Mechanism, and coordinated the repatriation of 428 Nigerian victims exploited abroad.
The report noted that the government issued restitution for 14 victims as part of criminal sentences, continued implementing the 2022–2026 National Action Plan, operated an anti-trafficking hotline, conducted public awareness campaigns, and maintained anti-trafficking task forces in 23 states.
