Human trafficking in Nigeria

Nigeria is a source, transit, and destination country for women and children subjected to trafficking in persons including forced labour and forced prostitution. The U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons placed the country in "Tier 2 Watchlist" in 2017. Trafficked people, particularly women and children, are recruited from within and outside the country's borders – for involuntary domestic servitude, sexual exploitation, street hawking, domestic servitude, mining, begging etc. Some are taken from Nigeria to other West and Central African countries, primarily Gabon, Cameroon, Ghana, Chad, Benin, Togo, Niger, Burkina Faso, and the Gambia, for the same purposes. Children from other West African states like Benin, Togo, and Ghana – where Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) rules allow for easy entry – are also forced to work in Nigeria, and some are subjected to hazardous jobs in Nigeria's granite mines. Europe, especially Italy and Russia, the Middle East and North Africa, are prime destinations for forced prostitution.Nigerians accounted for 21% of the 181,000 migrants that arrived in Italy through the Mediterranean in 2016 and about 21,000 Nigerian women and girls have been trafficked to Italy since 2015. Human trafficking in Nigeria is due to population boom and unfavourable economic conditions that aggravate unemployment, underemployment and insecurity which prompt citizens to seek for better opportunities in other countries. These opportunities include education, decent jobs and higher income. About 15 million Nigerians reside outside Nigeria as a result of demand for access to quality education and jobs.Human trafficking remains a major challenge to the global community because it is a threat to human and the causes of crimes in the world at large .Since 2009, Nigeria has made efforts to tackle human trafficking through collaboration with the Police, customs, immigration, Network Against Child Trafficking, Abuse and Labour(NACTAL) and National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons(NAPTIP). Specifically, the Public Enlightenment Unit of NAPTIP, with focus in remote areas of Benue, Kogi, and Edo states, partners with Devatop Centre for Africa Development to create awareness and had educated over 5000 women, teenagers, educators and youth on human trafficking prevention.