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Human trafficking from Nigeria started from the early 80’s when the demand for low-skilled labor was on the rise abroad and as a result of the poor state of Nigerian economy, people started making their ways to developed countries especially in Europe and as the need for human resources increased, the idea to engage people in human trafficking became a reality.
There is no gainsaying that Nigeria, a population of over 180 million is the most populous and naturally gifted country in Africa. It is located in the Western region of the continent but despite all the natural and human endowment, Nigeria still lags behind in terms of family protection.
According to an April 2007 report by UNICEF, there are 15 million victims of human trafficking in Nigeria with an amount of 40% of them at the risk of being forced into prostitution, entertainment, labor and pornography.
Nigeria is one of the most sorts after countries in Africa for human trafficking as presently, the country deals in trafficking with other countries like Gabon, Niger, Italy and Spain. The most disheartening part is that, there are no accurate figures to how many human beings are trafficked within and outside the country, except the figures provided by international organizations.
Nigeria, a country with 36 states across the federation and 20 of them are actively participating in human trafficking and they include, Lagos, Kano, Abia, Edo, Benue, Imo, Taraba, Yobe, Kebbi, Borno, Cross River, Rivers, Ebonyi, Akwa Ibom, Katsina, Kwara, Ondo, Niger, Katsina and Sokoto. You have to agree with me that these are very disturbing statistics.
Major Causes Of Human Trafficking In Nigeria
As a Nigerian who has lived and observed things around my environment for over two and half decades, I have to realize that the following points are the causes of why we are having cases of human trafficking and they are as follows:
Poverty
Over 70% of Nigerians live in poverty and as a result, every family want a better life and when the opportunity arises to travel abroad, they quickly jump at it without wanting to know or caring about what happens next. All they think of is that their lives would change for good. It is when they reach their destination that they realize that it was better to live in their country after all.
Illiteracy
Despite the continuous development in the educational sector all over the world, Nigeria is still far behind in education. Out of the 180 million citizens, a staggering figure of 65 million Nigerians are illiterate. Did I just hear you say what? How illiteracy comes to play is when a chance surfaces for a member of an illiterate family to travel abroad, they will not bother to make findings about and will only rely on hear says that once a person travels abroad, the family will never become poor again.
Seeking greener pasture
Over 5 million Nigerians live abroad because of the situation of things in Nigeria and as we speak thousands are still processing their visas on how to gain entry into Europe. Traffickers take advantage of the desperateness in people wanting to travel abroad by lying to them and when they arrive, they show them the real deal.
Bad governance
Nigeria is regarded as one of the most corrupt countries in the world and perhaps the most corrupt in Africa and as a result, nothing seems to be working out in all sectors as the political leaders have embezzled all the country’s resources and leaving little or nothing in the national treasure for citizens to enjoy. Citizens who can’t stand the poor state of affairs look for means of moving away from the country and in the process end up in the wrong hands.
Unemployment
33.10% of Nigerian graduates who are willing and able to work are unemployed. After years of sitting at home, they are sometimes presented with the opportunity of travelling abroad and some of them get to become victims of human trafficking.
Despite the fact that the Nigerian government in 2005 amended the Persons Law Enforcement and Administration Act when it increased the punishment for all forms of trafficking to 10 years imprisonment, perpetrators seem not to be deterred from this ungodly and devilish act as thousands of Nigerians especially girls are sent into forceful sexual exploitation, mining, begging and street vending. According to a report by humantrafficking.wordpress.com, 60% of prostitutes in Italy and Belgium are Nigerians.
The Agency in Nigeria responsible for protecting children and families from human trafficking is the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) which was established in July, 2003. Since the creation of the Agency, below are some of the giant strides it has recorded;
Between February 2004 and December 2012, NAPTIP rescued 757 victims of human trafficking.
Over 5,000 victims have undergone rehabilitation.
Over 100 traffickers have been prosecuted and serving various jail sentences in prison.
Between 2013 and 2017, the agency rescued 4,724 victims.
In 2016, 152 victims were rescued in Lagos state between January and April.
46 traffickers were convicted in 2013.Since inception, NAPTIP has secured the conviction of 331 traffickers.
Between 2014 and 2015, 733 victims were rescued in Lagos state.
In December 2016, 4 persons were apprehended in Plateau state for trafficking 49 male children.
NAPTIP arrested 3 human traffickers transporting 145 children between the ages of 4 and 8 in two trucks from Bauchi to Jigawa state.
In the part 2 of this write up, we will talk about NAPTIP comprehensively and other non-governmental organizations in Nigeria and their roles in human trafficking, make sure you keep a date with it.
Thanks for reading my post, I hope you have learnt one or two things from it.