A massive forced abortion program has been carried out by the Nigerian military on at least 10,000 women since 2013, reports Reuters. There is evidence use of rape as a weapon of war carried out by Islamist insurgents on Nigerian civilians in addition to exposing the Nigerian government’s forced abortion campaign.
As detailed in Reuters’ extensive article, 7 Division, the Nigerian military force in charge of countering the insurgents, has been forcing chemical and surgical abortions on tens of thousands of women who have been raped by Islamist insurgents such as Boko Haram and the Islamic State-West Africa Province (ISWAP), a self-proclaimed regional “caliphate” of ISIS.
Soldiers involved in the military’s forced abortion program stated to Reuters that the reason for the program was that the unborn children are believed to be “predestined” to be insurgents like their fathers, necessitating that the government “destroy (these) insurgent fighters before they could be born.”
Reuters verified that the Nigerian military has beaten and coerced women, some as young as 12, into abortions in the most unsanitary conditions.
For the second consecutive year, Nigeria has been left off of the U.S. State Department’s list of countries that engage in or tolerate the world’s worst religious freedom violations, despite regular reports of kidnappings and killings of Christians.
(This news is adapted and edited from CNA)