The National Human Rights Commission has said after thorough investigation, it found no evidence to support allegations that the Nigerian military orchestrated or carried out the termination of roughly 10,000 pregnancies in the North-East region, contrary to claims made in a Reuters report.
The Reuters article, published on December 7, 2022, titled “The Abortion Assault” with the subheading “Nigerian Military Ran Secret Mass Abortion Programme in War Against Boko Haram,” alleged that the Nigerian military had operated a covert, systematic abortion program since 2013, aimed at terminating at least 10,000 pregnancies among women and girls, many of whom had been kidnapped and raped by Boko Haram militants.
According to Reuters, the report was based on interviews with 33 women and girls who stated that the abortions were primarily conducted without their knowledge or consent while they were held by the Nigerian Army.
The report also claimed that women who resisted were allegedly beaten, threatened at gunpoint, or drugged to comply.
The pregnancies of the alleged victims ranged from just a few weeks to as long as eight months, and the victims included girls as young as 12.
Following the release of this report, the NHRC set up the Special Independent Investigative Panel on Human Rights Violations in Counter-Insurgency Operations in the North-East.
Chaired by retired Supreme Court Justice Abdul Aboki, the panel conducted an investigation into these allegations.
Speaking to the press in Abuja on Friday, the NHRC explained that its investigation concluded with no evidence found to corroborate the claim that the Nigerian military had engaged in any secret or unauthorized abortion program.
Witness testimonies did not support the existence of such a policy or program, according to the commission.
The NHRC further noted that abortions remain illegal in Nigerian hospitals unless they are part of a medical procedure called Manual Vacuum Aspiration, which is used to address ongoing miscarriages.
The commission noted that data from hospitals across three states in the North-East between 2013 and 2023 documented 5,945 cases of Manual Vacuum Aspirations, none of which pointed to a systematic abortion initiative.
Senior Adviser to the NHRC Executive Secretary,Hillary Ogbonna, stated, “There is no evidence that the Nigerian military conducted a secret, systematic, and illegal abortion programme in the North-East.”
