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Tessy Igomu
Having given up on life and people, all Blessing prayed for was death. After a series of failed suicide attempts, death seemed elusive and unwilling to claim her soul.
At 22, her life was a mess. As a destitute living with HIV, a status she acquired from birth, she became an easy target for human traffickers. She was lured alongside other naive girls to Libya for prostitution.
From the northern part of the country, they were moved to Niger Republic and then through the desert to Gatron in Libya, where they were sold like commodities to pimps.
After months of torturous existence, working under the most unhygienic conditions and sleeping with several men daily, Blessing became very sick and was bundled back to Nigeria. She was dumped in an unconscious state to die on a Lagos street.
Across the country, several stories, more sordid and blood-curdling than that of Blessing abound. Her story is sad but not unusual. For decades now, this type of tale has become the common fate for many Nigerian women frittered to unknown countries.
Daily, thousands are trafficked illegally from Nigeria to destinations in several countries, on the promise of a prosperous, new life. These women end up being caught in a vicious cycle of sexual exploitation and servitude. They are turned into commodities for financial gain, held perpetually in debt bondage and severely abused.
While some victims make it out alive with scarred bodies and souls to tell their horrifying stories, others have not been that lucky, as they are either killed in transit by their traffickers or sex patrons.
Sordid tales recounted from survivors of sex trafficking have revealed an organised syndicate that holds their victims bound to oaths of allegiance, and in which death remains the ultimate price for defaulting.
The cartels are noted for notoriously using threats as well a toxic mix of false promises of employment and traditional voodoo ceremonies to recruit and gain psychological control over their victims.
In all, the driving factor for the victims’ vulnerability to sex trafficking remains poverty.
Aside from being trafficked to Europe, Russia, Malaysia and, lately, Dubai, reports have indicated that Nigerian women are now taken to West and Central African countries, primarily Gabon, Cameroon, Ghana, Chad, Benin Republic, Niger, Togo, Burkina Faso and Gambia. This particular trend has been variously condemned by many and described as too close to home.
In January 2019, the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) disclosed that it received intelligence report that human traffickers forced around 20,000 Nigerian girls into prostitution in Mali after they were lured with bogus juicy job offers in Malaysia.
They were said to be working in ramshackle brothels and nightclubs after being sold to prostitution rings. It was further discovered that some of the girls were sold as sex slaves to gold mining camps in the northern part of Mali.
So far, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said it has responded to 238 cases of trafficked victims since 2017. In 2018, it also assisted 188 Nigerian women trafficked and stranded in Mali. They were voluntarily returned and reintegrated into the Nigerian society.
Alarming trend
Aside from this latest development, Nigeria, based on reports, has continued to feature among the top five countries for irregular migrants illegally entering the European Union.
According to the 2016 Global Slavery Index Report, there are 875,500 Nigerians who are victims of modern slavery. It also ranked Nigeria 32 out of the 167 countries with the highest number of slaves.
The US Department of State described Nigeria as a source, transit and destination country when it comes to human trafficking. According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), 99 per cent of the 4.8 million victims of commercial sexual exploitation in 2016 were women and girls, with one in five being girls.
As it stands, the number of those trafficked within and outside Nigeria is largely unknown. There is also no indigenous statistics of how many women are trafficked, except the ones from foreign researchers and the United Nations.
However, Nigeria is routinely listed as one of the countries with the largest number of trafficked victims abroad, with victims reportedly identified in over 40 countries in 2017.
In December 2017, 36,512 migrants stranded in Niger and Libya were said to have declared Nigeria as their country of origin.
Lamenting the rising number of Nigerian women being trafficked, NAPTIP director-general, Julie Okah-Donli, during a presentation to the ECOWAS Parliament, disclosed that Nigerian girls were being sold for between N210,000 and N240,000 to work as prostitutes.
She said, after being sold, they are forced to pay back between N1.08 million and N1.2 million, usually within eight months, to their madams.
She noted that as soon as they gain their freedom, the girls would then go into business, making money for themselves through prostitution, before graduating to becoming madams in their own right.
“There are more than one million Nigerians residing in Mali. About 20,000 of these Nigerians are girls believed to be victims of trafficking and the number increases by 50 per day. Many victims are deceived to leave their livelihoods in Nigeria for greener pastures in Mali.
“Some of the victims are abducted from Nigeria, including those that arrived in school uniforms. On arrival at the border town between Burkina Faso and Mali, many of the girls are sold off for CFA350,000 to CFA400,000; their new owners then make them pay back CFA1.6 million to CFA2 million with one CFA being 0.6 naira,” she said.
Throwing more light on the findings of the mission, Okah-Donli said efforts to repatriate girls were usually foiled through the complicity of Malian security forces, coupled with the willingness of many girls to return to the sex-for-gold trade.
She said some Nigerian girls were recently trafficked to the northern parts of Mali where they were offered sex and also radicalised.
The NAPTIP boss said the sex slaves were made to sleep with numerous men, without protection, while also being made to pay huge taxes by alleged complicit Malian authorities.
Okah-Donli lamented that efforts to stop the trade at the borders had not been encouraged by border security as they had not made efforts to arrest the traffickers in spite of all valuable information given to them.
“The border point between Nigeria and Seme-Krake and Burma Fas/Mali are notoriously porous, and despite numerous reports and pictures of traffickers sent to law enforcement agencies at the borders, no arrests or rescues have been made.
“The traffic madams are well known to the Nigerian community, but they are afraid to report them because of the complicity of the Malian security agencies in human trafficking, especially the gendarmerie who assist the traffickers to carry out their activities.
“Nigerian victims are way-billed from a motor park in Cotonou, dropped at Sikasso near the border with Burkina Faso, from where they are picked by Malian gendarmerie for delivery to their madams,” she said.
The NAPTIP director-general added that the Nigerian sex slaves lived in about 300 settlements in Malian bushes, with each settlement holding 100 to 150 girls.
The girls were aged from between 16 and over 30. She noted that they hanged around bars and nightclubs to hustle for clients, who they take into their huts made of polythene sheets.
Efforts in futility
Despite rescues carried out by NAPTIP and other agencies, reports showed that the number of Nigerian girls still trafficked continues to spike tremendously. This obviously made the IOM to warn that trafficking of Nigerian women had reached ‘crisis’ levels.
“What we have seen this year is crisis, it is absolutely unprecedented and is the most significant increase in the number of women arriving, especially in Italy, for 10 years,” IOM said.
The organisation noted that, in the past, what was common was women being flown into Europe with fake passports.
“Now they embark on the dangerous 2,500-mile journey overland through Africa and across Libya, before making an equally hazardous crossing by sea to Italy on migrant boats.”
Simona Moscarelli, an anti-trafficking expert at the IOM, described the trend as saddening and called for collective action to have it tamed: “What we are seeing at the moment in terms of the numbers and scale of the criminal trade in Nigerian women is unprecedented. Before, the women were exploited but there was a chance that they could pay off their debts and be free. Now, these girls really are slaves and subject to terrible violence. The women are getting younger, to the extent that a large percentage of those arriving now are classed as unaccompanied minors.”
Jude Asukwo, the convener of Arise Africa, a non-governmental organisation based in Lagos, said millions of young girls and boys were at the risk of human trafficking. He noted that, as long as there were no legislations to fight the ill, more would become victims.
Government efforts, not enough
Based on reports, Nigerian government has made efforts to stem the tide of trafficking into sexual servitude. Aside from aligning with international protocols to prevent and deter, processes were also set up and laws made.
In 2011, the federal government ratified the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially, Women and Children. It also passed a national law in 2003, Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Law Enforcement and Administration Act, 2003, which brought about the establishment of NAPTIP on July 14, 2003. Nigeria is also one of the few countries in Africa to have passed a national law against trafficking.
However, many concerned social critics have maintained that all the efforts, as long as they are not sustained, would not be enough. They stressed that much should be done as the problem still persists because it is a covert activity. They noted that the level and extent of occurrence remains unknown and perpetrators appear elusive.
Many have called for massive awareness initiates to be created, especially in rural areas and densely-populated suburbs in cities. They stressed it was time Nigerians joined hands together to fight the rampaging monster.
For Okah-Donli, proper collaboration between law enforcement agencies remains the panacea in effective prevention of human trafficking in Nigeria.
