A. Human Trafficking:
1. Origin and Definition
2. Types and Root Causes,
3. Traps, Tactics and Treatment
4. Key Agents
5. Magnitude of the Problem
6. International Trafficking Routes
7. Experiences of trafficked Persons
Origin of Trafficking in Women and Children, a Modern Day Slavery
1980s witnessed the fall of Communism in Europe and with it the unification of eastern and western blocs. Movements and international trade relationships resumed and thousands of people from the third world countries migrated to Europe in the quest of greener pasture. The women folk now joined their men counterparts in the search for better life for themselves and their families. They soon provided the much needed cheap labor in the west. Being poor and vulnerable, mostly because of their illegal status and illiteracy, many women fell prey in the hands of dubious people and were led into prostitution and commercial sex market. This became an organized crime in the early 90’s and thus gave birth to trafficking in women and children, a new form of slave trade of the 21st century.
It is estimated that there are 27 million slaves worldwide including people in debt bondage.[1] Between 700,000 and four million persons are trafficked each year. Of this number about 50,000 women and children are trafficked in the Unites States yearly. These come from Southeast Asia, Latin America, New Independent States, Central and Eastern Europe and Africa[2]. In Italy, it is also estimated that about 50,000 to 70,000 women live and work in the streets, coming from Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe. About 40% of these are minors between the ages of 14 and 18. Italy is one of the countries of transit and destination of trafficking. Statistics have shown that a large percentage of African girls make up the prostitutes in Italy. They are trafficked from Nigeria, Ghana, Togo, Cameroon, etc.
Africa’s Situation: It is reported that every year over 50,000 victims are trafficked from Africa. Nigerian women constitute the biggest percentage. The Ghana Immigration Services estimated that 3, 582 women were trafficked from the country between 1998 and 2000. In December 2005, the number had risen to over 5,000. In 1999, it was estimated that between 12,000 and 20,000 Ethiopian women were working in Lebanon as domestic workers in severely abusive conditions. The US government figures show that 14,000 women and children were abducted from Southern Sudan and sent to Western and Northern Sudan in recent years.
Trafficking in children has become a widespread problem in some parts of Africa. In fact, UNICEF estimated that more than 200,000 children were trapped in cross-border smuggling in West and Central Africa. In Angola, it is said that there are 10,000 street children, many of whom are lured into prostitution. In 2000, a study made by the Zambian government stated that as many as 563,000 children between the ages of 5 to 17 were involved in some form of domestic labour and prostitution within the country itself.
Referring to the hundreds of children abducted in Uganda and Sudan by the Lord’s Resistance Army, Mary Robinson, the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that a large number of the 6,000 missing children were made to serve as fighters, porters and sex slaves to rebels. In Guinea Equatoriale, an estimated 18,000 children between the ages of 10 and 14 have been trafficked from Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria and Togo. Gambia is reported to have 49,000 children between 10 and 14 who are economically active.
Intervention
The emergence and awareness of this global scourge of our century caused international communities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), religious groups, etc, to begin to network to combat it. In 2000, the United Nations (UN) approved the Palermo Protocol against Trafficking in persons especially Women and Children which has been and signed and ratified by many countries. This took effect from December 2003 to protect the trafficked and prosecute traffickers. Article 3 of the Protocol defines trafficking as follows:
Trafficking in persons shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.
Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.
Every country is therefore expected to go beyond the written and signed protocol to its implementation, to expose and stop this gruesome inhuman treatment of human beings. Churches and religious/faith communities have also been particularly called upon to play an important role in this fight against trafficking in human persons in order to save and affirm the dignity and rights of victims and safeguard the future. Governments, religious bodies and stakeholders both at national and international levels are called upon to collaborate and network in order to create awareness at grassroots levels and to utilize every available means to stop human trafficking and to help rehabilitate survivors of this crime. It is a global concern that involves all and sundry.
Types of Human Trafficking
Prostitution or Sex trade: This is situation whereby a woman uses her body to make money through sex. Sexual trafficking uses physical or sexual coercion, deception, abuse of power and bondage incurred through forced debt. Trafficked women and children, for instance, are often promised work in the domestic or service industry, but instead are sometimes taken to brothels where they are required to undertake sex work while their passports and other identification papers are confiscated. They may be beaten or locked up and promised their freedom only after earning – through prostitution – their purchase price, as well as their travel and visa costs.
Sexual exploitation akin to human trafficking also occurs within Nigeria. This phenomenon is not limited to conflict zones and IDP camps. In 2019, 68 out of 1152 victims rescued by NAPTIP were victims of sexual exploitation within Nigeria. 66 of these victims were women. Often women or girls are trafficked from the rural part of the country to big cities such as Lagos, Ibadan, Kano, Kaduna, Port Harcourt etc. Also there have been reports of recruitment of girls from internally displaced people (IDP)camps across northern Nigeria for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Some source indicated that victims of trafficking who had returned from abroad ended up in forced prostitution in Nigeria.
Poverty and lack of educational and economic opportunities in one’s hometown may lead women to voluntarily migrate and then be involuntarily trafficked into sex work.
Forced labour is a situation in which victims are forced to work against their own will under the threat of violence or some other forms of punishment. They are restricted and a degree of ownership is extended. Men are at risk of being trafficked for unskilled work. Form of forced labour can include domestic servitude, agricultural labour, sweatshop factory labour, janitorial food service and other factory labour.
Forced begging is a situation where a victim is force to beg. They are forced to beg on behalf of a third party. Generally, they make no money from it for themselves. They are monitored by the adults who exploit them and obliged to produce the money to the person in charge. If they do not achieve their target, they can be beaten or punished.
Forced begging is a major problem in Nigeria. In northern Nigeria millions of children who cannot be taken care of by their parents attend a specific type of religious boarding schools known as ‘Almajiri schools’ which rely on child begging/labour for financing. In 2014, UNICEF estimated that out of 13.2 million children outside of Nigeria’s formal school system, 9.5 million were in the almajiri system. In the South, particularly in big cities street children and child beggars are a common sight. In some cases, parents also force their children to beg, or recruiters lure children away from their families. According to 2020 US Department of State Trafficking in persons (TIP) report ‘in southern Nigeria, especially Lagos, some women drug and “rent” their infants out to street beggars to increase the beggars’ profit”.
Organ harvesting or removal: Trafficking in organs is also a form of human trafficking. It can take different forms. In some cases, the victim is compelled into giving up an organ. In other cases, the victim agrees to sell an organ in exchange of money/goods, but is not paid (or paid less). They often seek for kidneys. Finally, the victim may have the organ removed without the victim’s knowledge (usually when the victim is treated for another medical problem/illness). Migrant workers, homeless persons, and illiterate persons are particularly vulnerable to this form of exploitation. Victims often come from poor, rural communities and see few other options than to sell organs illegally. Trafficking of human beings for organs is an organized crime, involving several offenders such as the recruiter, the transporter, the medical staff and the middlemen/contractors.
Forced Marriage is a situation where young girls who are under-aged are forced to marry against their own will by the trafficker for the purpose of exploitation or even by their families for debt owed and mostly to a much older men.
Child Trafficking: It is an act of recruiting, transporting, transferring, and receiving a child with a view to exploitation by the use of threats, coercion, violence or deception aimed at the victim. According to the Nigeria living standards survey 2018/2019, 13% of Nigerian boys and 10% of Nigerian girls between the ages of 5 to 14 years old indicated to spend their time working only. It is more common in rural than in urban zones, and occurred most in north-central and north-west Nigeria.
Baby Factory and Selling of Babies: The center which houses the victims and their children is called a ‘baby factory’’. A range of actors including Nigerians and international media outlets reported on the trafficking of Nigerian women selling their babies. Articles by the Guardian and CNN also indicated that traffickers recruited already pregnant, unmarried women from poor background either promising them a high amount of money in return for their babies, or luring them into the ‘baby factories’ by pretending to provide them with some form of support. Another report indicated that baby factories recruited young girls from disadvantaged backgrounds, particularly the IDPs with the false promise of jobs.
Debt Bondage is a situation whereby the victims are held against their will through act of coercion and forced to work or provide services to the trafficker or others. The work or services may be structured as a work contract but with no or low payment or on terms highly exploitative. The victim is not being permitted or able to pay off the debt.
Forced Military/Child Soldier: This is a situation whereby under-aged children are forced and recruited as soldiers. They are given guns and are taught how to shoot human beings. In the north-east of Nigeria there were cases of recruitment of children as child soldiers.
Internet Trafficking: This is networking by inviting people through the internet to a hotel or bar and at their arrival they are kidnapped, sold or killed for rituals. A lot of girls have fallen prey to this scam. For instant, a girl from Delta State was invited by her Facebook boyfriend to a hotel in Lagos and she disappeared from there. Victims are also used for pornography and prostitution.
Root Causes of Trafficking in Women and Children
A look into the supply and demand factors with a focus on the socio-cultural, economic and political aspects of life expose the causes of trafficking. The following have been identified as being responsible:
Socio-cultural (supply side):
- Patriarchy which is the main cause for the discrimination of women and girl-children
- Illiteracy, inadequate educational and employment opportunities and gender discrimination
- Erosion of traditional family values and the pursuit of consumerism encourage the sale of women and children.
- Racial discrimination, racism and related intolerance which makes women from such communities more vulnerable to trafficking
- Media and new technologies which through advertising and commercialisation of sex, present women’s bodies as objects solely of sexual pleasure.
Socio-cultural (demand side):
• Patriarchy resulting in unequal power relations between men and women and in the discrimination of women.
• Pornography and its role in the growth in demand for sex. This is coupled with an ever increasing use of the internet as its vehicle and as a means for traffickers to market women and children.
• Male attitudes and perceptions of women in society, and women’s unequal socio-economic status.
• Consumerist behaviour with the commodification and commercialization of sex leading to the consideration of women’s bodies as mere commodities and as objects of sexual pleasure.
Economic (supply side):
• Economic disparities within and between countries and regions which is the primary cause for the growth in trafficking in women.
• Feminisation of poverty because women constitute 70% of the world’s poor and they support their families through precarious employment in the growing informal sector.
• Globalisation and its differential impact on women through economic restructuring and transition with cuts on social spending which affect women.
• Economic liberalisation which relaxes controls, opens borders between countries, facilitating population mobility and illegal migration.
• A lucrative business with high monetary returns because women are sold and resold a number of times. At the same time there are less dangers of being apprehended and this attracts crime syndicates.
• Downfall of communist regimes in Eastern and Central Europe and the difficulties in relation to an economy in transition.
Economic (demand side):
• Demand by employers for an unskilled and cheap labour market.
• Confinement of women’s labour in the domestic and entertainment spheres and in the informal sector.
• An expanding commercial sex industry and increased demand for sex. The variety of ways it merchandises women and children are: prostitution, sex trafficking, sex tourism, mail-order bride, strip clubs, topless bars and so on. The growth in the child sexual exploitation is due to male client preferences for younger women and girls because of the fear of HIV infection.
• Development policies promoting tourism and patterns that depend on temporary migrant workers.
Political (supply side):
- Feminisation of International Migration as women enter into the labour market, together with the lack of regulation for labour migration which provides increased opportunities and channels for trafficking.
- Civil and military conflicts push people to flee their countries. Of the 25 million refugees in the world 80% are women and children. They become easy prey in the hands of traffickers.
- Growth of transnational crime, and the expansion of drug trafficking networks act as mechanisms for other forms of exploitation.
- Weak law enforcement mechanisms and measures to penalize offenders.
- Corruption of police, law enforcers, embassy officials and peacemakers.
Political (demand side):
· Military bases both past and present have created an enormous prostitution infrastructure.
· Unequal and exploitative political and economic relations dictated by the North which results in the deterioration of conditions of life in the South.
· Restrictive migration policies which have decreased the possibilities for regular migration.
· Sales of arms and the increase of armed conflicts within and between countries with the consequent increase of displaced people and refugees who fall victims to traffickers.
· Weak law enforcement mechanisms and measures to penalize offenders.
Trap and Tactics
Poverty and ignorance are identified as major causes of this slavery. The targets of traffickers are often vulnerable women and children; illiterate women and run-away girls; refugees and illegal migrants and people from remote communities and tribes. Traffickers often enlist the help of local persons and villagers to identify vulnerable families. Sometimes women and children are sold directly to traffickers by parents or other family members.
Traffickers deceive and lure their victims with the promise of lucrative jobs or opportunity for studies abroad or a false marriage proposal to which they easily fall prey. ‘Women now desert their matrimonial homes with a few months’ old babies. Some men deliberately send their wives. Parents sign for their daughters to join the slave boat. Sometimes the women are physically assaulted and abducted.
The process of trafficking begins in countries of origin where the women are recruited by network of criminals who arrange false documents and illegal entry into countries of transit and destination by air, sea or land. In the process of recruitment the girls are made to sign documents which content they do not understand since most of them are illiterate and they are hardly given anytime to consult anybody. They are then taken to shrines where the syndicates threaten and make them swear oath of secrecy. Personal objects belonging to them, such as clothing, pubic hair, nails, etc are used for ritual and deposited at the shrine or handed over to the trafficker. These bonds and the real fear of physical sanctions (rape, violence and beatings) contribute to subduing the women and holding them perpetually to ransom and in a condition of servitude and exploitation. In the country of destination, they are sold or handed over to their pimps who are usually women who had been products of prostitution themselves and who had now gained their freedom and began to recruit their own slaves.
Treatment
Treatment of victims by traffickers includes confiscation of passports and visas; slavery; slavery-like practices including debt bondage; forced labor; rape; beatings; torture; restriction of access to food; restriction of access to medical and dental care even in cases of serious illness and extreme physical pain. Victims suffer severe mental abuse, including shaming and humiliation; forced confinement or false imprisonment; restricted freedom and movement, isolation, and forced tattooing as a visible sign of appropriation or ownership of the victim’s body and personal identity. In general, victims of trafficking are forced to work in the sex industry as prostitutes, call girls and nude dancers. They are confined to private apartments and brothels. The victim may be forced to work for 14-18 hours a day and often is not paid anything until she has succeeded in compensating her employer for his expenses in buying or bringing her. They are exposed to health hazards and sexually transmitted diseases such as, HIV/AIDS, syphilis, gonorrhea, hepatitis B, herpes, etc. The police and immigration agents also hunt them because of their illegal status in the country. On arrest they face deportation. Their dreams and hope for better life for themselves and their families are shattered. They come back home empty handed, humiliated and disgraced. Some are practically rejected by their families on arrival as failures. Thus they suffer from all sides. The level of emotional stress and trauma they go through cannot be imagined.
Key Agents in Trafficking in Women and Children
The following have been identified as key agents in trafficking in women and children: Agents in the trafficking networks, Tour operators and travel agents, Employment agents, Foremen and trafficking gangs, Crime syndicates with bases in many countries, Bar madams, local women recruiters, parents, relatives and friends, School teachers, Villagers and village headmen, Brothel and bar owners, Customers and clients and Corrupt officials (police, customs, immigration, peace keepers, border patrollers).
NIGERIA – a country of Origin/Source, Transit and Destination in Human Trafficking
In 2003, Nigeria adopted the Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Law Enforcement and Administration Act (TIPLEAA) which constitutes the legal basis for the fight against human trafficking in Nigeria and which has since being amended in 2015. Some States, such as Edo State, have adopted their own anti-trafficking laws. Edo State human trafficking bill was signed into law by Governor Godwin Obaseki on 24th May 2018.
It is estimated that Nigeria is one of the largest hubs of human trafficking in the world. It is a country of origin, transit and destination in human trafficking and Edo State is the epicentre of human trafficking in Nigeria.
Origin/Source – As a source country, victims are trafficked from Nigeria to Europe through the central Mediterranean route, but also to the Gulf States, the Russian Federation and Western and Southern African countries for the purpose of both sexual and labour exploitation.
Transit – Nigeria is a centre for victims of trafficking from West African countries. Trafficked women transit Nigeria en route to Europe and the Middle East, where they are often trafficked for sexual exploitation. The ports and waterways around Calabar also serve as a point of transit for trafficking children to Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.
Destination – Nigeria receives women and children from other Western and Central African countries.
International forms of trafficking in person:
Women and girls are trafficked to Europe for the purpose of sexual exploitation since the late 1980s. Benin City in Edo State is the epicentre. “Sponsors” and “Madams” covered women’s travel from Nigeria to Europe in exchange of sexual prostitution on arrival.
Nigerian women and girls are also widely exploited in Libya by traffickers, who keep them in so-called connection houses, where they are sexually exploited and raped by up to 20 men a day without receiving any contraception, often become pregnant and are forced to pay for unsafe abortions.
Trafficking destinations also include countries in North Africa, the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the Russian Federation, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Guinea, Ghana, Mali, etc. where victims are recruited under false promises and end up being exploited.
Internal forms of trafficking in persons
Internal trafficking, mainly from rural to urban areas, is also reportedly rampant in Nigeria, although often overlooked. It mainly affects women and girls for the purpose of domestic servitude and sexual exploitation and men and boys for the purpose of child begging, and labour exploitation in street vending, mining and stone quarrying, agriculture and textile manufacturing.
Trans-African and International Routes of Human Trafficking
Africa Routes – The networks of trafficking are widespread, complex, underground and are often out of the reach of the legal system. They are constantly changing and often follow migration patterns. They have extensive complicity of corrupt State officials and are facilitated by technological advances such as telephone, fax and internet. The routes of trafficking are varied and complicated. The traffickers are always evolving new ways and routes to avoid arrest.
West Africa Routes start from Cameroon through Nigeria, Benin Republic, Togo and Ghana. From there they move through Burkina Faso, Mali and Algeria into Morocco, all on foot. The story continues to tell how they trek through the deserts, meeting remains of some unfortunate ones who had gone before them and who succumbed to the harsh terrain of the deserts. From Morocco, the trafficked cross to Spain on foot and through a precarious tube-like boat into Italy because they do not possess legal documents. Once through, they can now find their way to other parts of Europe, America and other parts of the world. The situation is now even worse with the externalization of European borders to Libya. Libyan guards are paid heavily to prevent any crossing into Europe from Libya. The trade therefore has intensified in Libya as traffickers take undue advantage of the stranded victims.
Experiences of Victims
The situation is indeed unbelievable and critical. From the brutal and inhuman treatment the women caught in this web go through, it is difficult to understand the depth of their pain and hurt and how overwhelming the grief they bear. Lyly Rojas De Knaus emphasizes the need for proper education, influence and nurture of those who are suffering or who have suffered from this slavery. She says:
They need a lot of time, a lot of space and a lot of attention. They need to be listened to. They need a lot of love. They need an attention that is sincere and an attention that gives the sense that somebody is there to listen to them. Yes! When you believe that even God leaves you, you have lost the ability to listen to yourself. Therefore what one must do is teach them, listen to them, because one way to really kill a human spirit is to take away their human instincts. I call them the walking dead, because what is gone is that instinct that moves us on. We need to put back their instinct. To love is to listen.
Stories of survivors give vivid illustration of the situation:
Loss of identity – I never thought this would happen to me. I was sixteen when they came to our village. They looked very nice and offered jobs to girls as cooks. The program looked very good…. Nine other girls and I signed their contracts. They didn’t give us time to read them or take them to our parents. I thought our parents would have to sign since we were still in school but they said it was no problem. They were in a hurry and we signed their papers….
Once they come to your village and you sign their paper, your life was over.
As we reached the ‘promised land’ our documents were taken away and we became women without freedom, identity, dignity, rights, name, family and nation. We soon realized to have fallen into the hands of new slave trade and found ourselves into spiral of forced prostitution, where together with our body we had to sell our joy, youth, and our womanhood. The ‘road’ had become our home where we could be selected or rejected, admired or despised, sold or used like second hand clothes.
Change of name and attitude – You can’t use my real name. Or even the name they gave me in China. I don’t even know what my name should be. I am not the same person who left this village two years ago. My body came back but my soul is somewhere else. No one recognizes me anymore and everyone who comes to see me…. I think they come to stare at me because I am dirty now. I am filthy inside and my soul is empty. I don’t know if I can live this way. My mother comes to my room and says ‘Lena, you were such a friendly person. I miss you the way you were’, and I say, Mama, I am different. Something died in me. I think it was happiness.
Bestiality – A Ghanaian girl told her story of how someone came to her family to invite her to Germany where they needed someone to cook Ghanaian dishes in a restaurant. She and her family thought it was a good offer. On reaching Germany, she never saw any restaurant but was rather forced into prostitution with animals. “No one knew where we were. Three times a day, we were drugged and brought to the arena to have sex with dogs, horses and chimpanzees and filmed all through. If anyone were sick she was at the mercy of God because no medical attention was given. If anyone died she was cut into pieces and thrown away.”
Conclusion
Although printed, audio, visual and social media have featured this scourge of trafficking in women and children, many people are still not aware of the gravity of the situation, the subtle ways traffickers operate and their ever evolving new tactics to catch their unsuspecting preys. This scourge is one of the visible and concrete signs of our time to which governments, churches, the media, stakeholders and the entire society are called upon to address and eradicate. People (school children, market women, women organizations, etc) need to know and beware of traffickers and their subtle traps and to report cases. The clergy need to know and condemn it from the pulpit and the religious should get involved, to create awareness and to help survivors. One never knows. The victim might be a close relative or friend. It is indeed a challenging task that requires divine intervention and collaborative efforts.
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