Nigeria's human rights commission has appointed a special panel whose role will include investigating a Reuters report that the military ran a secret abortion program in its fight against Islamist insurgents in the northeast.
The Nigerian military said it would not carry out an investigation because the report was not true. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), which is appointed by the government, said in a statement posted on its website on Tuesday that it would launch the special panel next week in Abuja. NHCR has no powers to prosecute human rights violators but can recommend prosecution for offenders.
Reuters reported in December, based on dozens of witness accounts and documentation, that the military abortion program involved terminating at least 10,000 pregnancies among women and girls, many of whom had been kidnapped and raped by Islamist militants.
Read more here.
