Nigeria Kidnapping Crisis Raises Nearly $6 Million
Across Nigeria, a surge in kidnappings and attacks by bandits and Boko Haram-linked groups is destabilizing regions from the northwest to the northeast, with schools repeatedly targeted and communities left vulnerable. SBM Intelligence data show 7,825 people kidnapped and nearly 7.78 billion naira ($5.8 million) in ransom paid over July 2025–June 2026, underscoring how criminal networks are funding themselves and eroding public trust, while authorities pledge rescues and action against ransom networks.
World · 5 sources · Aug 27, 2026Read itThe journal
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About Human trafficking in Nigeria
Nigeria is a source, transit, and destination country for women and children subjected to trafficking in persons including forced labour and forced prostitution. The U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons placed the country in "Tier 2 Watchlist" in 2017. Trafficked people, particularly women and children, are recruited from within and outside the country's borders – for involuntary domestic servitude, sexual exploitation, street hawking, domestic servitude, mining, begging etc. Some are taken from Nigeria to other West and Central African countries, primarily Gabon, Cameroon, Ghana, Chad, Benin, Togo, Niger, Burkina Faso, and the Gambia, for the same purposes. Children from other West African states like Benin, Togo, and Ghana – where Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) rules allow for easy entry – are also forced to work in Nigeria, and some are subjected to hazardous jobs in Nigeria's granite mines. Europe, especially Italy and Russia, the Middle East and North Africa, are prime destinations for forced prostitution. Nigerians accounted for 21% of the 181,000 migrants that arrived in Italy through the Mediterranean in 2016 and about 21,000 Nigerian women and girls have been trafficked to Italy since 2015.
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