Boko Haram is forcing and duping young women into suicide missions for refusing to ‘marry’ members of the West African Islamist militant group, according to reports.

The revelation follows a recent report detailing the huge increase in the numbers of children, some as young as eight, being used by Boko Haram as human bombs in Cameroon and Nigeria, a large majority of them female.

The news comes on the eve of the second anniversary of the mass kidnapping of nearly 300 school girls from a school in Chibok, northern Nigeria. Despite causing an international outcry, the majority of the girls remain missing, along with an estimated 2,000 more women and children kidnapped on different occasions.

Aid officials have stressed there are numerous reasons for using children in suicide attacks. However, Doune Porter, of Unicef Nigeria, told The Independent that surviving girls had said that Boko Haram sometimes forced the children into suicide missions for refusing to marry Boko Haram fighters.

Laurent Duvillier, Unicef spokesperson for West and Central Africa, said that a nuanced examination of child suicide bombers was crucial.

The rise of Boko Haram Show all 20 1 /20 The rise of Boko Haram The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram The leader of the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram Abubakar Shekau delivers a message. Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for the mass killings in the north-east Nigerian town of Baga in a video where he warned the massacre “was just the tip of the iceberg”. As many as 2,000 civilians were killed and 3,700 homes and business were destroyed in the 3 January 2015 attack on the town near Nigeria's border with Cameroon AFP The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram People displaced as a result of Boko Haram attacks in the northeast region of Nigeria, are seen near their tents at a faith-based camp for internally displaced people (IDP) in Yola, Adamawa State. Boko Haram says it is building an Islamic state that will revive the glory days of northern Nigeria's medieval Muslim empires, but for those in its territory life is a litany of killings, kidnappings, hunger and economic collapse The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Nitsch Eberhard Robert, a German citizen abducted and held hostage by suspected Boko Haram militants, is seen as he arrives at the Yaounde Nsimalen International airport after his release in Yaounde, Cameroon on 21 January 2015 The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Officials of the Nigerian National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) visit victims of a bomb blast in Gombe at the Specialist Hospital in Gombe. According to local reports at least six people were killed and 11 wounded after a bomb blast in a marketplace in Nigeria's northeastern state of Gombe on 16 January 2015. Islamist militant group Boko Haram has been blamed for a string of recent attacks in the North East of Nigeria The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram People gather at the site of a bomb explosion in a area know to be targeted by the militant group Boko Haram in Kano on 28 November 2014 The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram People gather to look at a burnt vehicle following a bomb explosion that rocked the busiest roundabout near the crowded Market in Maiduguri, Borno State on 1 July 2014. A truck exploded in a huge fireball killing at least 15 people in the northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri, the city repeatedly hit by Boko Haram Islamists The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram President Goodluck Jonathan visits Nigerian Army soldiers fighting Boko Haram Getty Images The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Displaced people from Baga listen to Goodluck Jonathan after the Boko Haram killings AFP/Getty The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan speaking to troops during a visit to Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State; most of the region has been overrun by Boko Haram AFP/Getty The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Members of the Nigerian military patrolling in Maiduguri, North East Nigeria, close to the scene of attacks by Boko Haram EPA The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Boko Haram’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, appears in a video in which he warns Cameroon it faces the same fate as Nigeria AFP The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Nana Shettima, the wife of Borno Governor, Kashim Shettima (C) weeps as she speaks with school girls from the government secondary school Chibok that were kidnapped by the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram, and later escaped in Chibok The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram South Africans protest in solidarity against the abduction of hundreds of schoolgirls in Nigeria by the Muslim extremist group Boko Haram and what protesters said was the failure of the Nigerian government and international community to rescue them, during a march to the Nigerian Consulate in Johannesburg The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Boko Haram militants have seized the town in north-eastern Nigeria that nearly 300 schoolgirls were kidnapped from in April 2014 AFP The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram A soldier stands guard in front of burnt buses after an attack in Abuja. Twin blasts at a bus station packed with morning commuters on the outskirts of Nigeria's capital killed dozens of people, in what appeared to be the latest attack by Boko Haram Islamists, April 2014 The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram The aftermath of the attack, when Boko Haram fighters in trucks painted in military colours killed 51 people in Konduga in February 2014 AFP/Getty Images The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram The leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau (with papers) in a video grab taken in July 2014 AFP/Getty The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Ruins of burnt out houses in the north-eastern settlement of Baga, pictured after Boko Haram attacks in 2013 AP The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram A Boko Haram attack in Nigeria, 2013 AFP/Getty Images The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Abubakar Shekau, Boko Haram’s leader AP

“There is no single profile. Sometimes it’s because of pressure or coercion ... they might not know what they are doing at all," he said.

"But it is never the fault of the child. They do not make decisions; they do not pick targets.”

The children are sometimes drugged and carry devices that are detonated remotely. Some are told they are simply messengers. “These children are victims just as much as anyone else in these attacks,” Ms Porter said.

And marriage within Boko Haram is sometimes more accurately described as ritualised rape. The sexual abuse experienced in captivity is another reason for using young women as bombs as they have been conditioned to obey orders without question.

The rise in child suicide bomb attacks is partly because children are viewed with less suspicion than adults.

“Who would imagine that an eight-year-old girl was carrying a bomb that could kill you?” Mr Duvillier said.

“Would you worry about an eight-year-old girl that is knocking on your door asking for water? This is a tactic that is being used.”

A man walks past a the scene of a bombing after at least 20 people were killed when a young female suicide bomber detonated her explosives at a bus station in Maiduguri, northeast Nigeria in a Boko Haram attack in 2015 (STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images)

Using children as bombs has ramifications far beyond just the blast as it affects how other captured children are viewed if they are freed.

“When they return to their communities, they are very much viewed with suspicion, mistrust and even outright fear,” Ms Porter said. “They are afraid Boko Haram will expand into their community. It’s very, very, tragic.

“They have been victims three times. The day they were abducted, during their captivity when they were sexually enslaved, and again on their return home – because they are rejected by their own people.”

Children born as a result of rapes by extremist fighters are seen as ‘Boko Haram babies’ and, along with their mothers, are shunned by the communities when they need their support the most. “A child of a snake is a snake” is a common saying.

Some of the hundreds of schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram in Nigeria (AFP)

Aid workers now fear children freed from captivity with Boko Haram could be completely excluded, denying them access to education and other opportunities, creating a lost generation.

“Unicef knows how to help and protect those girls and their babies,” Mr Duvillier said, “but we desperately need funding to do it.