Abuja — The United Nations has rated human trafficking as the third highest profit earning industry after arms dealing and drugs.

This was made known yesterday in Abuja by the Executive Secretary of National Agency for the Prohibition and Traffic in Persons and Other Related Matters(NAPTIP), Mrs. Carol Ndaguba, while delivering a paper at the 4th Annual Women International Conference organized by Excellent Women International Forum in collaboration with NAPTIP.

Ndaguba noted with dismay the alarming rise of the modern slave trade and child abuse which she claimed as becoming almost normal in Nigeria.

According to her, human trafficking which has an external and internal dimension, gives an interest rate of about $9.5 billion annually and based on the US government research of 2006, people trafficked across national borders annually, ranks 800,000.

Apart from poverty which she identified as the primary cause, she also pointed out that globalised capitalism; corruption and greed are contributing factors to the evil practice.

While thanking the sister agencies of the Nigerian Police, Immigration Service, State Security Service and Nigerian Intelligence Agency for their unflinching support to NAPTIP in fighting the menace of human abuse, she called on all well meaning Nigerians to partner with the Agency in seeing that the evil custom is rooted out from the Nigerian system.

The Executive Director of EXWIF, Mrs. Christabel Julie Okoye, while welcoming the guests, highlighted the inalienable role of mothers in the upbringing of children. She explained that the purpose of the conference is to bring excellence to motherhood which will in turn bring sanity to our decaying society.