The Nigerian Army is accused of operating a “secret, systematic, and illegal” abortion operation in the nation’s northeast for the past nine years. According to a study, the army forcibly ended close to 10,000 pregnancies.
Many of these abortions were carried out without the pregnant lady’s or girl’s consent
According to the Reuters investigation, many of the women and girls who participated in this abortion scheme were abducted and raped by Islamic militants. Many of these abortions, many of which were as young as 12 years old, were carried out without the pregnant lady’s or girl’s consent. There were terminations of pregnancies that lasted from two weeks to eight months.
The campaign against women who were held in military custody for days or weeks depended on deceit and physical coercion. Three soldiers and a guard claimed that they routinely reassured women, who were frequently weak from imprisonment in the woods, that the drugs and injections they were being given would help them recover their health and combat diseases like malaria.
Women who refused were occasionally assaulted, caned, detained at gunpoint, or drugged into submission. According to a guard and a health worker, several people were restrained by ties or pins while having abortion medications injected into them.
Women who were detained by the military for days or weeks were subjected to intimidation and physical violence as part of the programme
Women who were detained by the military for days or weeks were subjected to intimidation and physical violence as part of the programme. The female rebels were “Beating, caning, holding at gunpoint, or drugging someone to comply. Others were restrained by ties or pins while having abortion medicines injected into them “According to a guard and a health worker quoted in the article.
The premise that rebel children are destined by the blood in their veins to one day pick up weapons against the Nigerian government and society is key to this approach, according to the research. According to estimates, the suspected abortion programme has been in operation since at least 2013, and procedures continued at least through November of last year.
