Nigerian commission appoints special panel to investigate military’s alleged forced abortion program

UPDATE, January 13th, 2025: The Nigerian military is suing Reuters over what they say is false reporting, after an investigation from the by the National Human Rights Commission found no abuses.

“After one and a half years of investigation, it was found that it was a complete lie. I was expecting Reuters to come in and apologize for it, but they did nothing. They did not even respond. After maligning the whole country, they have shown no accountability. I think it’s very important that Nigeria takes up this issue,” General Christopher Musa, the Chief of Defence Staff, said. “I’ve discussed with the Attorney General, and I think it’s important that Nigeria addresses this. We will not allow anyone to demoralize our troops or malign the country.”

Musa further alleged that the scheme was an intentional act meant to undermine the military as it fights terrorism in the area.

“What we realise is that any time we’re making progress, international organizations take it upon themselves to demoralize the country and our troops. We have refused to be demoralized, and we will not be demoralized.”

February 8th, 2023:Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has appointed a special panel to investigate an alleged forced abortion program perpetrated by the country’s military.

According to Reuters, the special panel “said it would refer for prosecution those it considered guilty of rights violations.” A previous report from Reuters stated that the program led to at least 10,000 abortions over a decade and targeted women who had been raped by Islamic militants. Nigeria’s military has accused Reuters of fabricating the program’s existence and the outlet has been unable to determine who created it. However, Reuters cited numerous medical workers, soldiers, and victims in discussing the alleged abortions.

Women allegedly underwent surgical as well as chemical abortions that utilized mifepristone and misoprostol – the two medications currently being pushed as alternatives to surgical abortions after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. In a particularly horrific story, a former captive discussed how another woman who appeared to be 6-7 months pregnant died after receiving an injection. 

“That woman was more pregnant than the rest of us, almost six or seven months,” Ibrahim said. “She was crying, yelling, rolling around, and at long last she stopped rolling and shouting. She became so weak and traumatised, and then she stopped breathing.

“They just dug a hole, and they put sand over it and buried her.”

Military personnel would reportedly remove women from Islamic insurgents’ capture before transferring them for abortions as part of an apparent attempt at ethnic cleansing. 

Reuters reported: “Central to the abortion programme is a notion widely held within the military and among some civilians in the northeast: that the children of insurgents are predestined, by the blood in their veins, to one day take up arms against the Nigerian government and society.”

“It’s just like sanitising the society,” a civilian health worker reportedly said. In a December statement, Nigerian officials accused Reuters of lodging a false attack on both the country and its people.

“Irrespective of the security challenges we face as a nation, Nigerian peoples and cultures still cherish life,” the statement read. “Hence, Nigerian military personnel have been raised, bred and further trained to protect lives, even at their own risk especially, when it concerns the lives of children, women and the elderly. Nigerian military personnel have been raised, bred and further trained to protect lives, even at their own risk especially, when it concerns the lives of children, women and the elderly.”

The government added that “[t]he Nigerian military will not therefore, contemplate such evil of running a systematic and illegal abortion programme anywhere and anytime, and surely not on our own soil. The Nigerian military will not also deliberately plan to target children during its counterinsurgency operations or other operations, both within and outside Nigeria.”

It’s unclear how long the commission’s investigation will last, and the body itself lacks power to prosecute offenders, according to Reuters. Experts reportedly said that the abortions could be construed as torture. Although abortion is illegal in the country, it isn’t criminal under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Besides the abortions themselves, beatings and sedation were part of the treatment women allegedly endured under military control.

Reuters reported, “Some women later told Reuters that had they been asked, they would have kept the babies. Despite the father’s brutality, ‘that child had done nothing wrong.’”

Editor’s Note, 2/8: This post has been updated since its original publication.

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