The news of seven Nigerian girls stranded in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, where they were taken to by suspected human traffickers, namely, Dele, Rose and Cynthia, shows that much is still needed to be done to curtail the rising cases of human trafficking that has become a serious challenge to Nigeria.
On arrival in Abidjan, the girls (15-18 years of age) were provided with accommodation in a brothel in Sikensi, on the outskirts of Abidjan, and were made to serve as sex workers.One of the girls said in Nigeria she had been shown the picture of a “white man”, who they said would employ her in his shop in Abidjan as a waiter. Another girl (17) was told that she would be taken to Germany with a promise of a well-paid job.
In Sikensi, each of the girls was shown her room and given condoms. They are disallowed from making calls or even having discussion with people. Luckily, after some days, the girls were rescued by leaders of the Nigerian Community in Cote d’Ivoire. The girls have been calling on the Nigerian Embassy to return them to their families.
Human traffickers adopt different strategies to actualize their dream of becoming rich by peddling people from poor and underprivileged homes to the highest bidder.While some of them operate within the same country, others take their victims abroad where they either literary sell them or give them out as domestic servants for a very huge fee but pay the victims pittance.
Many different modes of human trafficking are now in operation, and each of them is dehumanizing. Young boys and girls of school age have often been tricked to escape with their traffickers who deceive that they would get a new lease of life in the cities. But what they see instead is a21st century slavery in illicit or menial jobs that begin from 5 a.m. – 11 p.m. daily, and sometimes a deprivation of even a square meal.
Teenage-girl prostitution is on the rise in urban areas and some men take advantage of this. The men pay the fee to the “big mama”, who has brought the girls to the brothel or meeting-points in the cities.The “big mama” pays the girls a stipend. Some of the “big mamas” do not keep their promises and the young girls abscond to be on their own after a year or two.
Some years ago, Nigerian girls were the “hot cake” in Italy and other European countries where they were taken to by their traffickers for prostitution. These countries have since realised that the new trade in flesh by people they euphemistically call commercial sex workers would soon destroy their own marriages and way of life and so introduced programmes that would deter the importation of girls for prostitution.
The plight of these Nigerian girls in Cote d’Ivoire has called to question the effectiveness of the Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Law Enforcement and Administration Act 2003, which came into being to address the scourge of trafficking in persons in Nigeria and its attendant human abuses in its entire ramification. The National Agency for Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons and other Related Matters (NAPTIP) should investigate this case and the culprits.
We call on NAPTIP to work more closely with other agencies to ensure the elimination and prevention of the root causes of the problem. It should strengthen cooperation between the Attorney-General of the federation, Nigeria Police, Nigeria Immigration Services, Nigeria Prison Service, Welfare officials and all other agencies in the fight for the eradication of traffic in persons.