Nigeria: Tackling Human Trafficking in Nigeria

12 November 2013

An International conference on trafficking in women and children was held last week at Terra Kulture, Lagos with the theme: "Women and children as new tools of trade in the 21st Century: Exploring policy, research, community and legal frameworks for addressing human trafficking." At the sessions, several of the speakers described how the human trafficking victims - mostly hapless young women and girls in the age bracket of 10-21 years - are deceptively procured by some barons through their Nigerian agents. They are thereafter trafficked to different countries abroad where they suffer sexual exploitation, emotional distress, disorientation, depression and sometimes death.

The tales of what most of the victims go through are as gory as they are heart-rending. For instance, a social worker counselling some of the rescued girls detained at one of the shelters of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons and Other Related Matters (NAPTIP) narrated how a 13-year old girl who was trafficked and detained at a certain sex camp abroad managed to telephone her mother and tearfully narrated how her traffickers were forcing her to "carry" at least six men every day. But the hapless mother could only advise her to continue to bear the burden.

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