National Human Rights commission said Friday it will investigate reports that the country’s military has run a secret abortion program that conducted tens of thousands of forced abortions on women suspected of having been impregnated by Boko Haram terrorists. Officials from the United Nations, the Nigerian government and other partners met at the National Human Rights Commission headquarters in the capital city of Abuja on Friday and said they will probe the report on the mass abortions carried out by the military, VOA News reported. The move from Nigerian officials follows a Reuters report earlier this month that the military had conducted at least 10,000 secret and often forced abortions on women who had been suspected of having been impregnated by Boko Haram militants since 2013 as the nation looked to crack down on the insurgency group. After speaking with victims, health care workers and military members, the report detailed that a clandestine abortion program had been launched because senior officials had reportedly believed that infants born to insurgent fathers were “predestined” to “one day take up arms against the Nigerian government.” One civilian health care worker described the program as “sanitizing the society” as women, largely without their consent, were given pills and injections to force abortions after having been kidnapped and often raped by members of Boko Haram. Four soldiers described for the publication how they had been told by their superiors that the abortions were necessary to “destroy insurgent fighters before they could be born.”
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