Photo: UNICEF

Progress

• Creation of a Commission of Inquiry following the 14 February 2020 attack in Ngarbuh, North-West Region, which resulted in 14 children killed. In June 2020, the government announced the arrest of two CAF soldiers and a gendarme, whose trial began in December;
• Conviction of members of a vigilante committee for the killing in April 2015 of two children allegedly associated with Boko Haram in the Far-North Region;
• According to the Government, 72 children (34 boys, 38 girls) formerly associated with Boko Haram, including unidentified affiliated or splinter groups, were released in 2020 and transited through a DDR Centre in Meri, Far North Region.

Challenges

• Brutality of grave violations perpetrated by JAS and other Boko Haram affiliated or splinter groups remains a grave concern, notably the use of children, particularly girls, as carriers of IEDs;
• Grave violations in the North-West and South-West Regions, including denial of humanitarian access and attacks on schools and protected persons in relation to schools, resulting in the killing and maiming of children are extremely concerning;
• Detention of children for their alleged association with armed groups and on national security-related charges.

Recommendations

To the Government: 

• To pursue its efforts towards accountability for all grave violations against children;
• To treat all children formerly associated with armed groups as victims, in line with international juvenile justice standards, including the use of detention as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time, and to release all detained children;
• To adopt a protocol for the handover of children allegedly associated with armed groups to civilian child protection actors;
• To transfer the children to civilian child protection actors and ensure that children have access to child- and gender-specific DDR programmes and the protection of their rights.

To all parties:

• To immediately cease all violations against children.