Why Nigeria's Efforts to Help End Trafficking Still Falls Short

Most countries have anti-trafficking laws, policies and programmes to prevent human trafficking. There are also international treaties to address the problem. Yet it's still thriving, writes Uwafiokun Idemudia for The Conversation.

Some countries offer rehabilitation and reintegration services to support survivors and promote their well-being. Nigeria, for example, has done so. It sees rehabilitation as essential to protect the human rights of survivors and to help them recover after trafficking. Empowering survivors is a process in which they cease to be victims and start taking control of their lives. Rehabilitation has become a core component of the Nigerian government's anti-trafficking policies. But only limited efforts have have been made to assess these programmes and whether they help survivors in Nigeria, Idemudia says.

Nigeria has a reputation as one of the major origin, transit and destination countries for human trafficking. The U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons in 2017 placed the country on the "Tier 2 Watchlist" of trafficked people globally. 

Recruiters are seldom caught. The 2021 Trafficking in Persons report for Nigeria, compiled by the US government, reported only 36 convictions for traffickers. The failure to hold traffickers to account means that the few survivors who manage to escape often still live in fear of violence, or fear of their families being harmed if their traffickers find them.

Human trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, harbouring and control of a person using force and other methods of coercion. The aim is to exploit them. It could be through prostitution or sexual exploitation, forced labour, forced marriage, indentured servitude, and the removal and sale of human organs.