TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS-NIGERIA
Nov 20th, 2008 by admin
Trafficking, a phenomenal issue in Nigeria is particularly big because of poverty which many say is the reason a growing number of children and women are trafficked into Europe and beyond. As a result a number of organisations have arisen to try and curb this ugly trend but the fight they say goes beyond these groups. Therefore, with the issue increasingly becoming embarrassing to the country, educating the girl child should become a priority, though this may be hampered due to the unavailability of adequate resources. Trafficking or sex slavery as many would like to refer to it, is a huge issue because it is money making venture that cuts across continents, no wonder, it is taking a while for it to be properly addressed.
In any case, that many girls, women and children fall victims is largely due to the lack awareness of the inherent danger involved. However, in 1997, a campaign was launched in Nigeria to raise the required awareness on how to effectively address a menace that begun to eat deep into the fabric of the society. Prior to the campaign a lot of Nigerians did not even recognise it as a crime or as a human rights abuse and did not know that a phenomenon such as this was occurring.
With the campaign, it appears as if the trend is escalating, more so with public awareness that has enabled people to recognise it as a problem. This followed the return of some women who had been trafficked to European countries like Italy, where there was a recent massive deportation of these girls, sometimes with plane loads of a hundred and twenty girls.
Nigerians have finally realised that it is a fundamental problem with a lot more people trafficked than earlier assumed and just too many people involved. This was buttressed when the Italian ambassador admitted that over 10,000 Nigerian girls are on the streets and Nigerians constitute about sixty percent of the entire population of prostitutes in Italy. Bisi Olateru – Olagbeji Director of Women’s Consortium of Nigeria (WOCON) realises that there are over 50,000 Nigerian women and girls who are trafficked for sexual exploitation all over Europe. Because of the magnitude of this trend a lot more people are encouraged to join in the campaign against it. A very popular one is (WOTCLEF) an organisation founded by the former wife of the former vice president of Nigeria, Abubakar Atiku.
WHAT ABOUT THE CULTURAL ACCEPTANCE IN SOME PARTS OF THE COUNTRY?
We found that certain forms of human trafficking are peculiar to certain communities. In the case of trafficking to European countries for sexual exploitation or prostitution, we find that majority of those who are trafficked about 94% are from Edo State but we are also getting them from neighbouring Delta state or Lagos and for those trafficked for prostitution to maybe Saudi Arabia then we are looking towards the northern part of Nigeria, from Kano, Kwara etc. so it depends on the form of trafficking.
Again, we have a lot of internal trafficking like the trafficking of children from the rural areas into the cities to serve as domestic helps. Many see it as a form of recycling the poverty that they are trying to avoid and because of our culture of fostering many poor parents send their children to their rich relatives for upkeep either to educate them or to formally give them some form of vocational training. This does not stop within the country as some children are trafficked outside the country to neighbouring Cote d’avoire and Cameroon to work as servants. It is unfortunate that people see it as a form of recycling poverty. It is not that it is culturally accepted it’s just that the people have ignorantly put their heads in the noose and are just been choked up.
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE CHALLENGES YOU FACE?
Principally, because of ignorance which makes people vulnerable to been exploited, ignorance on the part of their parents, guardians and relatives it’s like the Non governmental organisations are trying to prevent them from getting the opportunities they need. At the same time parents are also collaborators, they are part of the criminal network because when they donate their children or wards they are anticipating some returns-gains and with the devaluation of the Nigerian currency people just lap at any foreign exchange. Others, want the immediate gain because a child could be taken abroad for very little.
In any case, when it comes to Trans national criminal network, people who are trafficking are dynamic. They make very huge profits, nobody knows them, they can do a lot of money laundering and because they do not want the practice to stop, they have all kinds of tricks up their sleeves. If you are aware of a particular trick they come up with another one and the unsuspecting victim falls into the trap of being trafficked.
The unfortunate side to this are the young people who make themselves available because of the lack of opportunities within the country. These are some of the challenges we have.
We have been to communities where we try to sensitize them against human trafficking and they ask us what we want them to do, we can’t look at our children die of hunger.
With poverty playing a huge role, the question is what the Non governmental Organisations are going to do in the face of poverty, for as long as we have poverty as the major underlying cause, issues like this will be difficult to effectively address.
WHAT DOES THE FUTURE LOOK LIKE THEN?
I believe the first step is to identify the problem and Nigeria is beginning to identify the problem. Nigeria has taken it to up on a very high level; it was the first country to have the legislation against trafficking in the whole of Africa, going further to set up an agency specifically for that. If Nigeria has taken a lot of political will, then I think we are in the right direction.
Nonetheless, people need to be mobilized because it is not an issue that can be addressed by a single person either as individuals or as organisations because Nigeria is a big country, a very populous one, so many hands are needed on deck and in doing this, a lot more NGO’S have to come in. The government itself needs to be more serious with funding, NAPTIP (National agency for prohibition of human trafficking in persons) is supposed to address the issue as a government body because the issue of trafficking involves the economic, health and political connotation as well. While it is difficult to have been trafficked, those persons need protection and their protection does not mean only putting them in an institution, it goes beyond that.
On a whole, when one looks at the issue from a migration rights issue, people who are unskilled are not needed abroad, but then we have the problem of brain drain in Nigeria. All the brains and highly skilled individuals are going outside Africa, they are going from Nigeria to other places because they can make better money whereas the unskilled manpower that they have and they need are not utilised, they need unskilled people too, to be able to clean gutters, they need such people and if you don’t have them the economy will be affected so these people should be recognized as providing service and be given their rights as a working migrant or a migrant worker.