For human traffickers, it’s a bad new year

At a conference in Makurdi, UNODC, NAPTIP and others vow to renew fight against perpetrators of human trafficking and related crimes, reports WOLE BALOGUN

In the days to come, human traffickers and those who commit crime against other governments by smuggling migrants into their countries would have it bad in Nigeria. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes, (UNODC), National Agency for Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons and Other related matters, (NAPTIP) and a team of social workers recently renewed efforts to combat the crime in a more strategic, result-oriented and holistic approach.

Established primarily for providing technical aids to member nations of the United Nations, the UNODC, has for three years, been collaborating with relevant agencies such as the Ministry of Justice, NAPTIP and other agencies in Nigeria to assist in prohibiting offenders, rescue victims and to reintegrate and rehabilitate trafficked persons.

With a substantial grant of 4.6 million Euros expected from the European Union, the major sponsor of UNODC projects, the teamwork is targeted at the Federal Capital Territory and five states in Nigeria considered endemic for human trafficking and smugglers of migrants. The states are Edo, Anambra, Cross River, Lagos and Benue.

Ms. Mumbi Njau, representative of the Country Representative of the UNODC to Nigeria, who is coordinating UNODC involvement in the project, made known the mission and visions of the joint effort of her institution and NAPTIP in a recent media roundtable in Makurdi.

She said: “UNDOC was an initiative of the Kofi Anan regime at the UN. It is created to combat crimes related to Trafficking in Persons (TIP) and abuse of drugs and children and we basically provide services in negotiation, implementation, research analysis and the whole global mandate on terrorism. We are creating a coordination mechanism on combating TIP and Smuggling of Migrants (SOM). We have had an assessment done and drawn up a plan on better coordination.

There is a new proposed law on smuggling of migrants before the house and we are hoping that it would soon be considered. NAPTIP has been trying to amend the whole law and we have been working with them more on the advisory level.

NAPTIP has been around for 10 years and there is an assessment report already made on its activities, plans and strategies for improvement. We have been doing a lot on capacity building such as training for investigators and prosecutors and helping them on ways they could work together. We also do training on youth development and research programmes. We do this through mentoring, workshops and seminars. We also have a toll free call facility for the public so that anyone could report cases of trafficking and smuggling of migrants.

“The expected grants are mainly for rehabilitation and re-integration of victims of trafficking. We have N8.4 million for the victims’ support, and another substantial amount for awareness campaign which has been well advertised in the media.

There is also support and protection for victims and we are also working on the investigation and prosecution of perpetrators. India has done a lot to combat trafficking and as we do have a comparable context in the case of Nigeria and india, we have officials of NAPTIP who have been to India to learn how the scourge is being combated there and are back to plan on better and more strategic ways to fighting it here.

“We have also catered for monitoring how well rehabilitated and empowered victims of trafficking are fitting in the society and there is a scheme for capacity evenbuilding for organizations involved in combating trafficking. We have enjoyed a great support from the new DG of Immigration in the course of carrying out our synergy with relevant agencies.”

Mr. Arinze Orakuwe, NAPTIP’s head of media and communication, in his paper entitled: “Introduction to TIP” revealed that trafficking in persons is a modern slavery which is carried out in virtually all parts of the world to satisfy a huge sex industry already established in Europe.
“Human trafficking is a modern form of slavery and has been in existence dating back to centuries with its abolition over 200 years ago. The crime, though abolished, still strives all over the world where human beings are purchased like common commodities with a more disturbing trend in the sale of human parts and women embryo.

“It involves 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 of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.”
Exploitation, he noted, includes, at a minimum, the exploitation or 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 day, you read in the pages of newspapers about rape of a minor, two, three, four and five year-olds. And you ask yourself, where are we going to? You also want to ask: how does it connect to human trafficking? But these are the markers and the source and they are symptomatic of a society that is going down. Trafficking is just an adjunct of it.

“Research has it that trafficking in persons is prevalent within the under aged and young women, as they remain the most vulnerable, deceived, recruited, transported and transferred to a recipient, solely for exploitation. Most times, the victims are coerced through deception with unfulfilled promises, while some are forced against their will for the benefit of the traffickers.
“There are various causes of TIP emanating from different economic, political, social and cultural factors. Some of the most common are poverty, lack of human rights, greed, civil unrest, natural disasters, lack of social or economic opportunities, dangers emanating from conflicts or militarism, unemployment, corruption, and bad governance.

“However in Nigeria, the root causes are mainly poverty and greed, as people are driven by the get rich quick syndrome, not minding the risk involved. In some other communities, the patriarchal system of rule, where power is controlled only by the men, devalues the women and girls, making them vulnerable to trafficking.

“In addition to these are issues of porous borders, the involvement of organized criminal groups or networks, weak enforcement of migration laws and the lack of adequate laws to enforce legislation on TIP.

“In Nigeria, reports have it that children, teenagers and females are most vulnerable to TIP. They are exploited as domestic servants, street hawkers, beggars, prostitutes and other forms of domestic servitude. Nigeria is rated as a source, transit and destination country for TIP.”

NAPTIP was established on August 26, 2003. The agency is a creation of trafficking in persons (Prohibition) Law, Enforcement and Administration Act of 2003, with the aim of responding and tackling the issues of human trafficking in Nigeria. The agency is vested with the powers to coordinate all laws on TIP and related offences. This includes prevention of all forms of human degradation and exploitation, eliminating the scourge of trafficking in persons and child labour, as well as giving assistance to victims of human trafficking through rehabilitation and programmes aimed at improving the lives of TIP victims. The agency adopted a strategic tool termed the 4Ps – prevention, prosecution, protection, and partnership.

“Partnership with countries like Italy, the Netherlands, USA, Finland, Norway, Britain and organizations like UNODC, IOM, UNICEF, WOTCLEF etc has remained one of the agency’s biggest tools of fighting the scourge,” Orakwue said.

In his highly instructive paper, entitled: Role of the media in TIP and SOM, Mr. Sylvester Tunde Atere, UNODC ‘s outreach and communication officer, examined the role of journalists in combating TIP and SOM as creating awareness, investigating, holding government and implementing agencies accountable as well as influencing public perceptions and opinions positively with a view to discouraging the practices.

Atere advised that certain cautions should be taken in reporting stories of victims so as to prevent unintended damages to them.

His words: “Avoid the pornography of grief – graphic descriptions that disregard the subject. Don’t put undue pressure on people just to get out a story. Deal with respondents with respect – not as criminals – you can be polite but take “No” for an answer. Accuracy is very important. Reconsider your angle to the story, judge whether your story belongs in public view or not. Consider how much detail is appropriate.”

The vulnerability of victims of TIP to HIV/AIDS infection was explained by Mr. James Ayodele, also an outreach and communication officer with UNODC. In his paper: HIV/AIDS and human trafficking,, he noted that HIV/AIDS represents both a cause and consequence of trafficking for exploitation.

“Trafficking increases a person’s vulnerability to HIV infection: 40–90% of trafficked persons are infected with HIV, according to findings by the UNODC. Children who have lost at least one parent to HIV/AIDS are more susceptible to traffickers’ manipulations. The highest rates of HIV infection in the world exist in centres of sex tourism – Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, South Africa and Botswana, among others. He also explained how a trafficked person is prone to HIV/AIDS infection. These, he said, include unsafe sex practices (homosexual or heterosexual), noting that about 89% of HIV infections are sexually transmitted; injecting drugs and sharing of piercing instruments and the clandestine and illegal status of trafficked victims makes them invisible and further reduces their access to health services, particularly those that focus on HIV/AIDS.

ThecCriminalization of TIP and SOM is the onus of the paper delivered by Mrs. Aminat Abdularam, a lawyer with the legal department of the UNODC. She noted that criminalizing SOM is not an intent to criminalize migration. According to her, Article 5 of the law prohibiting SOM clarifies that migrants themselves must not be held responsible for the crime of smuggling only because of having been smuggled. Her words: “Refugees who relied on smugglers to flee persecution, serious human rights violation or conflict should not also be criminalized for making use of smugglers or for their illegal entry.”

She pointed out that the consent of victims in SOM would be rendered useless if cases of deception, coercion and abusive means for the purpose of exploitation are established.

Abdulraham noted the differences between TIP and SOM. “Smuggling is always transnational, whereas trafficking needs not be. Trafficking can occur regardless of whether victims are taken to another country or only moved from one place to another within the same country.

When exploitation of victims is firmly established in cases of TIP and SOM, it then becomes culpable.”

While Mr. Odoh Okenyodo of the NAPTIP concerned himself with ethics in reporting TIP and SOM in his paper, Miss. Kaneng Rwang-Pam, a development consultant who represented the Media Campaign Against Human Trafficking, (MeCAHT) and The BIHA Projects’ Youth Anti Trafficking/Prevention Education Campaign,                     explained to journalists the efforts already being made by her organization in rescuing, rehabilitating and re-integrating victims of TIP.
To inspire and motivate participants at the media roundtable, Mrs. Sunthan Krishan, a renowned Indian activist and proprietor of Prajwala, a non-governmental organisation in India that caters for thousands of TIP victims, addressed the media team on issues arising from TIP. Sounding resolute and optimistic, Krishan said: “It is a very exhilarating experience for me to travel all over the world to rescue victims of TIP. But I have found out that there is a secondary victimization for the victims when they are rescued. This includes lack of support for victims.

Today, TIP is common in different parts of the world and three major factors painfully aid and abet it. The culture of silence about the problem by the people; criminals are busy trafficking millions daily while we slow down in learning. There is also a culture of forgetting so soon. We become used to the news and there is a culture of complacency.

Nobody wants to do anything about it. I appreciate Nigerians in this co

ntest in confronting and fighting the problem and this brings hope. But this will be realised if the national agencies partner with other law enforcement agencies. We should put measures in place – a series of protection, preventive measures sensitizing and dealing with adverse culture supporting the system, like an 85-year-old marrying an eight-year-old child. We need to put preventive mechanism in place to protect the dignity and protection of women. We need to do a lot with protection of victims. The perpetrators do it with impunity. I appeal that we pledge together to make life miserable for traffickers. Give the message to the police and other institution to say no to trafficking, and no to violence. Nobody should be sold.”

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