• Increase efforts to investigate and prosecute trafficking crimes, including hereditary slavery and child forced begging, and seek adequate penalties for convicted traffickers, which should involve significant prison terms.
• Increase efforts to proactively screen for trafficking indicators among vulnerable populations, including migrants, IDPs, communities historically exploited in traditional slavery, individuals exploited in begging, and children associated with armed groups, and refer trafficking victims to care using the NRM.
• Finalize a NAP to combat trafficking and allocate resources to its implementation.
• Ensure victims are not inappropriately penalized solely for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked, including for begging offenses.
• Expand training for judicial and law enforcement officials on investigating and prosecuting trafficking crimes using the 2010 anti-trafficking law and Article 270 of the penal code.
• Institutionalize training for front-line actors, including national police, border police, social workers, and judicial officials, on the NRM and victim identification procedures.
• Increase availability of comprehensive victim services in coordination with civil society, especially outside of the capital.
• Continue to fund and empower the National Coordinating Commission for the Fight against Trafficking in Persons (CNCLTP) and the National Agency for the Fight against Trafficking in Persons and the Illicit Transport of Migrants (ANLTP/TIM) to execute their mandates.
• Amend the 2010 anti-trafficking law to ensure the penalties prescribed for adult sex trafficking are commensurate with those prescribed for other grave crimes, such as rape or kidnapping.

The transition government decreased prosecution efforts.

Order No. 2010-86 on Combating Trafficking in Persons, enacted in 2010, criminalized sex trafficking and labor trafficking. The law prescribed penalties of five to 10 years’ imprisonment for trafficking offenses involving an adult victim, and 10 to 30 years in prison for those involving a child victim. These penalties were sufficiently stringent. Penalties for sex trafficking of children were commensurate with those prescribed for other grave crimes, such as rape, although the penalties for sex trafficking of adults were not. Article 270 of the penal code also criminalized slavery and prescribed penalties of 10 to 30 years’ imprisonment and a fine. A draft bill criminalizing the practice of wahaya, or “fifth wife” (a practice in which men exploit girls from impoverished families in forced labor and sexual servitude) remained pending before the Council of Ministers.

In 2024, the government reported investigating an unknown number of suspects in five cases, including one for labor trafficking and four for unspecified forms of exploitation, compared with investigating 35 suspects in 26 cases in 2023; officials also continued to investigate 10 trafficking cases. The government initiated prosecutions of 10 alleged traffickers, including one individual for forced labor and nine others for unspecified forms of exploitation. Courts convicted eight traffickers under Article 270 of the penal code. This compared with authorities prosecuting 17 alleged traffickers and convicting 10 traffickers in 2023. The government sentenced the eight convicted traffickers to eight months of imprisonment and ordered an unspecified amount of compensation to victims. The government reported minimal law enforcement action to hold traffickers exploiting victims in hereditary slavery practices, including the enslavement of children, accountable. Officials reported some hereditary slavery victims declined to testify against traffickers due to fear of retribution and cultural stigma, which impeded law enforcement efforts. The government issued a decree to eradicate the exploitation of children, including child forced begging, and officials subsequently reported a reduction of begging in the Niamey region. Some judges were reluctant to issue sentences for hereditary slavery crimes due to fear of reprisals, although the government imposed new mandatory sentences for local courts. The government did not report any investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of government employees complicit in human trafficking crimes; however, corruption and official complicity in trafficking crimes remained significant concerns, inhibiting law enforcement action during the year.

Designated prosecutors in each of Niger’s 10 high courts oversaw trafficking prosecutions and coordination with ANLTP/TIM. Other agencies, including a transnational organized crime unit in the Department of Territorial Surveillance and the gendarmerie’s specialized unit for the protection of women and children, supported trafficking investigations and prosecutions. Limited resources restricted officials’ ability to identify trafficking cases and effectively monitor the country’s lengthy, remote, and porous borders. International partners implemented some anti-trafficking trainings for law enforcement and other officials in collaboration with the government. Transition authorities reported limited cooperation with foreign counterparts on anti-trafficking activities.

The government maintained protection efforts.

The government identified and referred to services 17 trafficking victims, including 12 children and five adults; this compared with officials identifying and referring 77 victims during the previous reporting period. Civil society and international organizations reported identifying and providing services to at least 22 foreign victims of trafficking, including 20 victims of sex trafficking and two victims of forced labor. Observers reported officials’ confusion around the government’s repeal of the 2015 anti-smuggling law in November 2023 coupled with the conflation of human trafficking and migrant smuggling contributed to a sharp drop in referrals of human trafficking cases. The government spent 15 million West African CFA francs (FCFA) ($23,961) on victim care and assistance.

The government, with support from an international organization, drafted an SOP on identifying, assisting, and providing protection services to trafficking victims; the SOP awaited approval at the end of the reporting period. The government coordinated victim identification and protection efforts through its NRM, which identified roles for prosecutors, judges, law enforcement, social workers, and other front-line officials and protection actors. The government, in collaboration with an international organization, trained front-line law enforcement and protection actors on victim protection and the NRM. However, the government did not consistently follow NRM procedures, and observers reported authorities returned children exploited in forced begging to their homes, without screening for trafficking indicators or providing any services to reduce further vulnerabilities. The government reported repatriating an unspecified number of potential Nigerien victims exploited abroad in begging, including boys linked to Quranic schools (talibés).

The government, in coordination with an international organization, continued to operate one dedicated shelter for trafficking victims and 12 additional shelters across the country that could accommodate trafficking victims. The shelter provided medical, psycho-social, and legal services, and reintegration and repatriation assistance. An international organization and civil society organizations operated additional shelters and transit centers, which trafficking victims could access. However, shelter services outside of the capital were limited, and observers noted border posts and police stations’ emergency assistance and reception capacity to care for trafficking victims was insufficient. Foreign and domestic victims had access to the same services. Foreign victims who faced hardship or retribution in their country of origin could apply for legal residency, including the ability to obtain employment, but authorities did not report granting these protections to any victims.

Access to victim services was not conditioned on cooperation with law enforcement proceedings. The government could provide victim-witness assistance, including legal services and psycho-social support, and victims had the option to provide written or video testimony. The law allowed victims to obtain restitution, but the government did not report pursuing restitution in any cases. Victims could file civil suits against traffickers. However, no victims reportedly did so, and many victims were not aware of this option. Due to inconsistent screening, the government did not take effective measures to prevent the inappropriate penalization of potential victims solely for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked.

The government maintained mixed efforts to prevent trafficking.

The CNCLTP continued to serve as the ministerial coordinating task force for the government’s anti-trafficking efforts, and the ANLTP/TIM was the CNCLTP’s implementing body to address trafficking in persons; both convened during the reporting period. The government allocated 45 million FCFA ($71,885) to the ANLTP/TIM and CNCLTP; this compared with 50 million FCFA ($79,872) allocated the previous year. The government again did not finalize a draft 2023-2026 anti-trafficking NAP.

The government held limited awareness raising campaigns. The government operationalized its previously established inter-ministerial committee to combat forced begging under the prime minister’s office and adopted a national strategy to combat begging. The government maintained laws to regulate religious-based schools including Quranic schools to prevent child forced begging, although enforcement of these laws remained inconsistent. The government ceased operations of its hotline to report trafficking crimes. The government did not report identifying any potential trafficking victims during labor inspections. The government did not make efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts. The government reported it provided anti-trafficking training to troops prior to their deployment as peacekeepers. However, although not explicitly reported as human trafficking, there were 10 pending cases of alleged sexual exploitation with trafficking indicators by Nigerien peacekeepers deployed to UN peacekeeping missions between 2009 and 2018. The government did not report the accountability measures taken, if any, for the substantiated cases by the end of the reporting period. The government routinely provided anti-trafficking training to its diplomatic personnel, although the government did not report if officials received training during the reporting period.

Trafficking affects all communities. This section summarizes government and civil society reporting on the nature and scope of trafficking over the past five years. Human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in Niger, and traffickers exploit victims from Niger abroad. Traffickers exploit victims in labor and sex trafficking, including hereditary and caste-based slavery practices, children in forced begging, adults and children in domestic work, and refugees and migrants subjected to forced labor or sex trafficking. Hereditary and caste-based slavery practices perpetuated by politically influential tribal leaders continued in Tillaberi and Tahoua regions, as well as along the border with Nigeria. Traffickers exploit victims of hereditary slavery in small-scale agriculture, animal herding, or domestic servitude; experts assert victims of hereditary slavery frequently do not self-identify or file complaints against traffickers due to a lack of support services and ingrained dependency on the trafficker. Niger has the highest rates of child marriage in the world, with 76 percent of girls married before the age of 18 and 28 percent married before the age of 15; many of these child marriages result in the child being subjected to domestic servitude and sex trafficking. Perpetrators exploit girls as young as seven years old, usually the daughters of hereditary slavery victims, in forced labor and sexual servitude; wahayu children are subsequently exploited in hereditary slavery. Girls fleeing these forced marriages are vulnerable to re-trafficking due to a lack of support services exacerbated by continued discrimination based on their former status as wahayu. Sudden onset disasters such as floods increased large-scale displacement and migration, exacerbating vulnerabilities to human trafficking.

Some Quranic teachers (marabouts) exploit boys (talibés) as young as six years old in forced begging within Niger and in neighboring countries, at times with some parents facilitating the trafficking; many teachers set daily begging quotas enforced by beatings, and observers report the students lack access to adequate food and shelter. Traffickers fraudulently recruit victims through the pretext of traditional cultural practices called confiage, in which parents send children to live with family or acquaintances in order for the child to have better access to education and economic opportunities; traffickers subsequently exploit the children in forced labor and sex trafficking. Some parents “rent” out their children for the purposes of forced begging or in domestic servitude in a phenomenon called location d’enfant (child rental) in Zinder. Traffickers exploit girls in sex trafficking near the border with Nigeria and along the main east-west highway, primarily between the cities of Birni N’Konni and Zinder. Observers reported Fulani girls are especially vulnerable to child sex trafficking.

Boko Haram and ISIS-West Africa forcibly recruit and use Nigerien boys to serve as child soldiers. Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM), a militant jihadist organization, recruits and uses child soldiers in combat and support roles and exploits women and girls as young as 13 in forced marriage, sometimes through abduction and for the purpose of exploitation. Observers note that school closures and limited economic opportunities resulting from instability have increased children’s vulnerability to recruitment or use by armed groups. There are more than 975,000 displaced people in Niger.

Some smugglers exploit Nigerien and other African illegal migrants transiting Niger en route to North Africa and Europe in forced labor or sex trafficking. Migrant smugglers use unpaid transportation fees as a form of debt bondage, subsequently coercing some internal Nigerien and foreign migrants who cannot pay their fees into forced labor, including in artisanal gold mining. Traffickers also exploit Nigerian women in sex trafficking in Niger, often in debt bondage through exorbitant transportation fees. Fraudulent labor recruiters facilitate the transport of Nigerien women and children to North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, where traffickers then exploit victims in domestic servitude, forced begging, or sex trafficking.
Sustained mass expulsions of Nigerien and foreign nationals from Libya and Algeria to Niger increased refugees’ and migrants’ vulnerability to trafficking. Seasonal migrants traveling to Algeria and Libya for work remain vulnerable to forced labor and sex trafficking. The government did not approve the former Nigerien administration’s agreement with the Cuban regime for the hiring of healthcare workers, and confirmed workers departed Niger after the July 2023 coup d’etat and have not returned. The Cuban regime may have forced Cuban regime-affiliated professionals who