The 2025 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report released by the U.S. Department of State has strongly criticized the Nigerian government and Borno State authorities for returning trafficking victims to their Boko Haram “husbands” and, in some cases, to their traffickers.
According to the report, Nigeria failed to meet minimum standards in critical areas of the fight against human trafficking and has remained on the Tier 2 Watch List. Authorities were said to have provided inadequate protection for vulnerable groups, particularly women, children, internally displaced persons (IDPs), and children forced into begging and domestic servitude.
The U.S. government noted that weak victim screening processes resulted in “re-victimization and inappropriate penalization,” with some women and girls detained or handed back to insurgents. It also identified widespread corruption among law enforcement and judicial officials as a major obstacle to justice, while highlighting that shelter services for victims especially men remain grossly insufficient.
During the review period, the Nigerian government recorded minimal accountability. Only one officer of the Nigerian Immigration Service was prosecuted for sex trafficking, while a case against a member of the Civilian Joint Task Force remains unresolved. Although the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) dismissed or demoted staff implicated in trafficking-related misconduct in 2023, the government failed to initiate any criminal prosecutions.
The report further alleged that some security personnel sexually abused displaced persons in Maiduguri and surrounding areas. It stressed that judicial corruption, coupled with inadequate training for local judges, continued to undermine prosecution efforts. Insecurity in northern Nigeria was also cited as a major hindrance to enforcement operations.
Concluding its assessment, the U.S. Department of State stated that corruption, official complicity, and inadequate victim protection remain key weaknesses in Nigeria’s anti-trafficking response, leaving survivors vulnerable to further exploitation.
