Soldiers Deployed To Fight Insurgency In Lake Chad Basin Allegedly Eloping With Young Women

A new report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), has revealed that some Nigerian soldiers and other troops sent to fight Boko Haram in the Lake Chad basin, are abandoning their duties to chase women.

The UNDP report titled “Perspectives from local communities on stabilization and building peace in the Lake Chad Basin” which was released yesterday May 8th, said a lack of professionalism and reckless sexual behaviour, was exhibited by many of the security forces stationed in the communities around the lake.

“In Cameroon, relations between security agencies and communities seemed particularly strained by sexual and gender-based violence perpetrated by members of the security agencies. In Limani, for example, a woman gave birth to a child that was fathered by a soldier, resulting to her being excluded from her home due to the taboos associated with this incident. Other girls and young women in the area have left villages with soldiers without undertaking the traditional or civil marriage process.”