The issue of human trafficking has become a very stubborn issue. Nigeria has become a notorious destination for human trafficking according to a recent US report, Ngozi Nwankwo reports that when Nigerians are busy looking abroad for trafficked Nigerians, many more are internally trafficked.
When Nigeria’s ambassador to Russia, Assam Assam recently raised the alarm that about 200 Nigerian girls are trafficked to Russia every month, many Nigerians were puzzled. But what many Nigerians do not know is that for every one Nigerian trafficked abroad, about 10 are trafficked locally.
Recently, the National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons and Other Related Matters, NAPTIP, stated that Nigeria has a huge trafficking problem which some cultural practices and deep patriarchal society have exacerbated.
Speaking at the National Stakeholders Conference on Human Trafficking, the executive secretary of NAPTIP, Mrs. Beatrice Jedy-Agba said that available intelligence indicates that large number of Nigerian women and children are still trafficked internally.
Internal human trafficking has its roots in poverty and ignorance. Nigerian women and children are lured from rural areas with the promise of better life within the country’s borders − women and girls for involuntary domestic servitude and forced commercial sexual exploitation, and boys forced to labour in street vending, domestic servitude, mining and begging.
Recent reports show that Nigeria has become both a transit route and destination for women and children trafficking, forced labour and prostitution.
For instance, the United States government in its 2013 Reports on Human Trafficking, described Nigerians as major contributors to the trafficking of human beings. “Children from West African countries – primarily Benin, Ghana, and Togo – are forced to work in Nigeria, and many are subjected to hazardous labor in Nigeria’s granite mines. Nigerian women and girls – primarily from Benin City in Edo State – are subjected to forced prostitution in Italy, while Nigerian women and girls from other states are subjected to forced prostitution in Spain, Scotland, the Netherlands, Germany, Turkey, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Ireland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Greece, and Russia. “Nigerian women and children are also recruited and transported to destinations in North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia, where they are held captive in the sex trade or in forced labor. Nigerian women are trafficked to Malaysia, where they are forced into prostitution and to work as drug mules for their traffickers,” the report said.
According to Assam Assam, “The major consular challenge we face in Moscow is the influx of trafficked persons from Nigeria; not less than 200 girls are trafficked every month, and we have so many of them exposed to danger.
“Some are thrown out of the window and treated harshly. There must be a way of stopping these racketeering; these girls are not tourists, students or government officials, yet they are given visas from the Russian embassy in Abuja.
“So far we have deported over 240 girls since 2012. You will be shocked at the extent of resistance from the girls; we tell them Russia is not a destination for prostitutes, yet they still come.”
Recently, NAPTIP carried out a covert operation evacuating 10 Nigerian girls working as sex slaves in Abidjan, Cote d’ivoire. The girls who were brought into Abuja in two batches are from Edo, Delta, Rivers and Benue States with Edo State topping the chart with six girls.
Jedy-Agba disclosed that the operation which was intelligence-driven was in collaboration with the regional bureau office of Interpol in Abidjan, and an Abidjan-based non-governmental organisation, Family Essan for Protection and Promotion of Human Rights, FEPPH.
According to her, NAPTIP felt obliged to bring the girls back home for rehabilitation as Nigerians and also to support further investigation in the crime. She lamented that there are many Nigerian girls in bondage in the booming sex trade in Cote d’ivoire and Burkina Faso; and the agency will go as long as funds permit to return them home to safety and rehabilitation.
Mrs. Jedy-Agba said the task of combating this crime and consequent rehabilitation of victims cannot be left to NAPTIP alone, as the whole of society is needed much more in tackling this huge responsibility.
She noted that the ugly effect of human trafficking cannot be effectively tackled in isolation from related issues of promotion, protection and enforcement of the rights of the citizens.
Her words: “We must commit to a society in which we are able to meet the basic needs of our citizen and their rights are respected”. It is regrettable to say that one of the greatest tragedies of the country is that parents traffic their own children for personal and pecuniary benefits.
Many have argued that poverty is the major cause of human trafficking in Nigeria. Some victims who were aired on several occasions through the NAPTIP sensitisation programme were on the view that they were sent out by their parents to make money in order to support their families.
This set of people are said to live in abject poverty and thereby resorted into unethical means of surviving while other trafficked persons are reported to have been deceived by their mistresses. It is believed that poverty level in Nigeria is on the high and the people living in the rural areas of the country share the greater ugly trend of economic hardship. Report has it that one out of every 10 family in the rural dwelling lives without three times balance meal, let alone meeting their basic needs. Apart from the case of poverty, it is also revealed that some young girls today do not want to work or live within their income. In fact, greed and lack of self control is the greatest trap for the upcoming girls. It is true that some trafficked persons were deceived, yet others purposely chose to engage in commercial sex to satisfy their sexual orgy.
“This is sad but the reality going on in Nigeria; but most of the girls in recent times know what they are going there to do. There was also case where a family even raised money for the girls to make this trip so that they can make cool money as brain washed by traffickers. In most cases, it all run down to greed where one believes that life in Europe or Italy will double her fortune, even when the person does not have any concrete plan of what to do over there.”
Minister of Women affairs, Hajiya Zainab Maina refuted the argument that poverty is the reason for trafficking during the National Stakeholders Conference on Human Trafficking. The minister who was represented by Dr. Mrs. Habiba Lawal noted that poverty is not the only cause of human trafficking, rather lack of well implemented policies that will protect women and children.
Maina therefore urged anti-trafficking partners to close ranks, as strengthened partnership and synergy within the ranks will yield greater result.
Speaking in the same vein, the representative of the Attorney General, the Solicitor General of the Federation and Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Justice, Alhaji Abdullahi Yola, said considering the low rating performance of the country in global trafficking compliance, Nigeria must reconsider the strategies and improve on it as the scourge posses a great concern to the present administration.
Recognising the need to combat the bane, Senator Umaru Dahiru, the chairman, Senate Committee on Human Rights promised that the National Assembly is set to amend the NAPTIP act to address major lapses thwarting the effort of government and international organizations in dealing with the scourge. He promised that the Senate would fast track it immediately.
On the last note, Mohammed Adoke SAN, admonished that considering the low rating performance of Nigeria in global trafficking compliance, government must reconsider the strategies and improve on it as the scourge poses a great concern to the present administration.