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Nigeria: Child Trafficking - Babies

Roland Ogbonnaya

6 January 2008

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In Abia and Ebonyi States, NAPTIP discovered that some churches also use children to beg and make money. The agency last year got a petition that a church was using some 25 children for begging, which the agency intervened. Mrs. Okoronkwo said it's not all the cases that they handle that end up in court. Some suspects or offenders, she said are cautioned and monitored in other to check them incase they repeat the offence.

Another trend of child trafficking identified in the south east by NAPTIP is the growing rate of kidnapping of girls who are later sold for between N15,000 to N20,000 to ready buyers as domestic house helps. There are also cases of rape in the zone, Mrs. Okoronkwo noted, while admitting that there have been quite a number of rape cases reported to its office in Enugu. She said the agency was currently investigating the case of a lecturer at the Imo State University who raped an eight year old girl. She also mentioned the case of an 18-year old girl who was abused by a 70 year old man. She said the girl is currently undergoing rehabilitation at the agency's temporary accommodation.

Mrs. Okoronkwo admitted that there has been an increase in reported cases of child trafficking in South East largely due to awareness the agency has been able to create since its doors opened in Enugu. She said before NAPTIP came to the zone, there was a study carried out which identified Abia, Ebonyi and Enugu States as endemic states. As the agency began work in the area, it discovered that each state has its unique challenge in terms of the problem. "It's no more Edo and Abia thing. For example, in Abia State, the traffic is high in Item area because of its border with Cameroun, while Ebonyi also records high traffic in child trafficking.

Last year, the agency got information from a network in Ebonyi State that a group of youths (150) were being trafficked to somewhere, probably to Cameroun. "When we intercepted them, the traffickers said they were taking them on holiday camping and will bring them back after the holidays. But if you know the antecedent of young men of this area, some will not come back as many will drop by to become house boys and girls or ply the streets selling petty and cheap products on the streets of major cities. In the case of the girls, some will get pregnant.

"Another group comprising of 122 young men was also intercepted as they were passing Ebonyi State, claiming they were going to another country. According to our investigation, they were being moved from Niger to Cameroun, it's a cartel moving the trafficked people from one country to another. There are people who dispatch them; there are another who receives them and their others whose business is to recruit. It's a network of traffickers," Mrs. Okoronkwo said.

The victims apparently moved from Mali, were about 13 years old and could not speak English, but French. According to NAPTIP, they had no passport and did not know their destination, did not pay their fare, meaning that somebody recruited and transported them. The agency described Nigeria as both destination and transit country for human trafficking.

In its own account, the Ebonyi State Police Command said it recorded a major break-through in the fight against human trafficking and child slavery, when it intercepted two bus loads of illegal emigrant at Ezzamgbo community in Ohaukwu local government area. The immigrants, the Police said where on their way to Cameroun and other central African countries.

In a news conference, the Ebonyi State Police Commissioner, Mrs. Julie N. Iroha said it was a major breakthrough in crime combating by her command as she paraded the suspects numbering 121, including 12 women in connection with the offence. She narrated how on July 12, 2007, at about 0600 hours following a tip off, a team of detectives from the state command intercepted two luxurious buses belonging to Ifesinachi Transport Company conveying 122 persons from Lagos to Cameroun.

The CP said that luck ran out of the desperate emigrants when their chaperon, Esther Eze, from Uburu in Ohaozara local government area of the state could not give believable reasons why such a number of people, most of who are males cramped in the luxury buses. She said strong indication emerged in the course of interrogation that the 122 persons were being trafficked. While admitting that the matter was still under investigation, the CP said of the number, 92 were from Mali, 14 from Senegal, one from Sierra Leone, one from Guinea Bissau, two from Mauritania, seven from Guinea, three from Niger Republic and one from Cameroun.

The suspected human trafficker, Ms. Esther Eze told newsmen that she was just serving as a guide for the immigrant pointing out that they were assembled at a park in Cotonou en route to Cameroun and other countries where they hope to find jobs. She stated that this was not the first time she was shepherding such immigrants to various destinations. Eze dismissed insinuations that she may have been a member of a racket.

Surprisingly however, one of the suspects, who gave his name as Alabi Abudu Kabiru, from Cotonou, said he paid 70, 000 CFA to Esther to facilitate his emigration to Cameroun where he said his elder brother is currently sojourning. Also another suspect, a lady, who gave her name as Beya, said she paid 80, 000 CFA to the suspected trafficker pointing out that she had been staying in Cotonou as an immigrant but decided to go back to Cameroun, her country of origin.

Since it opened its office in Enugu, Mrs. Okoronkwo said the agency in the last few years has rescued 55 cases of human and child trafficking, while 35 arrests were made within the period in Ebonyi, Abia, Enugu and Anambra States where THISDAY investigated.

Often times too, according to investigation, the victims are coerced, tricked, lured or out rightly forced out of the country with promise of a very bright future in the destination country which always turns out to be a fluke. Stories from repatriated victims revealed that some of them were made to swear before priests in shrines where their pubic hair, finger nails are cut for keeps, to make them pliant.

A regional project launched in 2003 by the United Nations Office of Drug and Crime (UNODC) found in a succinct Nigerian case study that although trafficking of persons from Nigeria involved both Nigerian and nationals of other countries; it appeared that the human trafficking activities that take place in Nigeria are conducted entirely by Nigerian citizens.

"Those involved include recruiting agents, native doctors (voodoo priests) who often perform ceremonies to control the victims, lawyers who draw up debt bondage agreements, estate agents who help to launder trafficking proceeds through real estate transactions and travel touts and agents who provide the necessary travel documents and arrangements.

Generally, foreign nationals work as temporary guides across borders or provide shelters and safe houses along the routes or harbour victims traveling by land. This seemingly innocuous transaction has taken such dimensions that Nigeriatoday has been dubbed an endemic country in the trafficking of human beings.

In a citation index drawn up by UNODC, Nigeria ranks as "very high" as an origin country, and together with Cote D'Ivoire and South Africa, they are frequently cited as destinations for victims trafficked from African countries, bringing with it negative portrayals and odium internationally.

Perhaps, this propelled government to enact the Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Law Enforcement and Administration Act, 2003, which also created the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons and Other Related Matters (NAPTIP). As a result, Nigeria is the first African country to enact such a law and establish a specific agency to implement it. Since its establishment, NAPTIP, in collaboration with other law enforcement agencies, international agencies like UNICEF, the Italian and Belgian governments, have collaborated towards reducing the incidence of this illicit phenomenon. According to NAPTIP, an estimated 4.5 million persons are trafficked internationally, while about 10,000 are trafficked from Nigeria annually.

Before now, many people never knew that Trafficking in Persons (TIP) and Forced Labour (FL) constituted an offence. Reactions hitherto have vacillated between ignorance and indifference. Executive Secretary of NAPTIP, Mrs. Caroline Ndaguba said it has been difficult obtaining accurate statistics on the trafficking situation in Africa because of the nature of the illicit trade. Quoting an earlier report from UNICEF on the phenomenon, she said that four per cent of repatriated victims of international trafficking in Nigeria are children. The female/male ratio is seven to three. "Internal trafficking in Nigeria was also reported to be forced labour (32 per cent), domestic labour (31 per cent) and prostitution (30 per cent)," she said. Inadequate as the statistics may be, Ndaguba said they illustrated the magnitude of human trafficking in Nigeria and efforts that need to be made to combat the illicit trade.

The agency's interventions have been in prosecuting traffickers, rehabilitating victims, collaborating with nations and agencies to fight the scourge and generally creating awareness in the public about this new menace. NAPTIP however, disagreed that poverty is not the reason and can never be the reason for human trafficking, but greed.

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