AT a joint meeting organised recently by two professional international associations, Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences (PASS) and the Global Alliance for Legal Aid (GALA), at Casino Pio IV, Vatican City, the major concern was, “How do victims of human trafficking get re-orientated into the larger society?”

Both organisations are concerned about the wellbeing of trafficked persons.

A paper presented on the occasion by the founder/chairperson of the Women Organization for Gender Issues (WOGI), Mrs. Stella Odife, noted that the Global Slavery Index (GSI) 2016, which examined slavery in 167 countries, Nigeria inclusive, showed that, by 2016, a global estimate of 45.8 million people were living, in one form or the other, in conditions that pass for modern slavery.

Of this number, a total 875,500 are estimated to be victims of modern slavery in Nigeria, accounting for 0.481 per cent of the total and positioning the country as the eighth among 167 countries reviewed. More pathetic was the vulnerability ratio of Nigerians to modern slavery per hundred citizens. The ratio stands at 62.34/100. Overall, on the Prevalence Index Rank, Nigeria was ranked 23rd out of 167 countries.

The GSI also indicated the Nigerian government’s response rate to the modern slavery pandemic with a B rating, which on a rating scale of high (10) to low (1) represents five, and indicates an average of 40-49.9 per cent.

The recent economic recession in Nigeria led to an increase in unemployment, poverty, inflation and depleting income rates and social unrest across all geo-political zones in the country, and also caused an increase in the rate of internally displaced persons (IDPs). It was natural to assume that the prevalence of domestic trafficking and modern slavery in Nigeria would by September 2017 increase in leaps and bounds.

According to Mrs. Odife, in September 2017, a report from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Walk Free Foundation reduced the figures of those who in 2016 were victims of modern slavery, putting the estimate at 40.3 million.

The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), in a recent report has it on good record that there is a growing trend of migrants who get trapped in Libya being sold by trafficking gangs in the North African country. The report indicates that most of them, who leave their home countries in the hope of crossing the Mediterranean Sea to get to Europe, hardly make it and they suffer heavy casualties. 

Related News

At the gathering in Rome, Odife said: “On the whole, whether in Nigeria or anywhere else in the world, those who suffer the most from the threats and inhumanity emanating from the global business and supply chain of trafficking in persons are women and the girl child.”

Though the statistics seem to point at progress in the global battle against trafficking in persons, logic says otherwise in Nigeria. If poverty and social inequality are on the increase, the likelihood of resorting to trafficking will also be on the increase, the WOGI chairperson argued

Sandra Ali (not real name) was just rescued through the efforts of the International Organisation for Migration, the Nigerian Embassy in Libya and NAPTIP. Before then, her traffickers subjected her to all forms of torture.

She narrated her ordeal: “A young woman called Hope brought up the idea of travelling to Europe to assist my younger ones, since my parents were separated and I am the first child. She connected me to one Bright, who till now resides in Libya. Bright directed me to a park in Auchi where I boarded a bus going to Kano. From Kano, about 15 girls and I were received by a man who got us on another bus.

“The bus travelled on the road for three weeks. We were taken to a ghetto in Sabratah, Libya, where we spent two months. During those two months, we had no water to drink. Some of the girls died. The burgers, who were to take us across the Mediterranean Sea into Italy, brought all sorts of men to have sex with us. They told us that we were hustlers and we would have to cross the sea into Italy and Spain when the police patrol was minimal.”

Sandra Ali further said that human trafficking syndicates in Libya have camps in Misratah, Sabratah and Az Zawiyah, which are all Libyan coastal areas, from where they attempt to take their victims across the Mediterranean Sea into Europe.

According to her, victims first land in Agadez, Niger Republic, after a five-day journey by land from Kano State in Nigeria, before journeying to the Libyan camps through the Sahara Desert. The Sahara Desert spans nine African countries, Mauritania, Morocco, Mali, Niger, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Chad and Sudan.

Executive director of the Ricky Martin Foundation, Bibiana Ferraiuoli, explained that traffickers often offer help to marginalised people suffering domestic violence and other forms of vulnerability, including lack of jobs, in their communities.