Trafficking of women in Nigeria: causes, consequences and the way forward

Abstract

The phenomenon of the trafficking of women, especially of young girls and women into exploitative sexual and commercial labor, has recently begun to attract local, national and international attention from world leaders, academics, the mass media, advocacy groups, the clergy and humanity in general. This is against the back drop of the fact that the trafficking of women has a number of far-reaching socio-economic, health and political consequences. Several factors, among them poverty, unemployment, ignorance and family size have been implicated as being reasons why women fall easy preys to the antics of traffickers. From available statistics, we can say that about 500,000 women are brought into the United States of America and Europe yearly for sexual and domestic servitude. Of the over 70,000 African victims of women trafficking, Nigerian women account for 70 percent of those trafficked to Italy alone. Fighting the menace requires a coordinated and concerted push from all stakeholders. This paper presents the causes and consequences of the trafficking of women from Nigeria to America and Europe. Empirical evidence indicates that the activities of traffickers, corrupt embassy officials, the country’s porous borders, poverty, refusal of victims to expose traffickers, delay in prosecuting apprehended culprits and biting youth unemployment have “conspired” to undermine the battle against the illicit trade. The paper makes far-reaching recommendations about how to mitigate the identified obstacles.