The United Nations Women Tuesday said 70 percent of women and girls were trafficked worldwide.
The UN Women Country Representative to Nigeria and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Comfort Lamptey, made the disclosure at the launch of UN Women and Government of Italy project on preventing forced migration and trafficking of women and girls in Nigeria.
Lamptey, who noted that apart from irregular migration Nigeria also experience increase in human trafficking, said women and children constitute majority of those trafficked to Europe, as well as being irregular migrants to other African destinations and the Middle East.
“The starting point for our work is an acknowledgement of the disproportionate impact of trafficking on women and girls, who make up over 70 percent of persons trafficked globally.
“Nigeria is simultaneously a country of origin, transit and destination for all streams of migration and trafficking. Women and children constitute the majority of those trafficked, with many poor women migrant workers being trafficked to Europe, especially Italy.
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“Others have irregularly entered or have been trafficked into the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, under the guise of holy pilgrimage to Mecca. Important source sites of forced documented and undocumented migration and trafficking include Edo and Delta states and some Northern states including Kwara and Kano states,” she said.
She noted that the initiative would build on the efforts of the Nigerian government to address forced migration and trafficking and support interventions in gender gaps, harnessing the potential of women’s organisation and networks to raise awareness at the community level.
She, however, lamented that there had been limited investments in auditing the protection and other front-line services that were delivered to survivors of forced migration and trafficking from a gender perspective.
She identified structural inequalities, vulnerabilities and lack of sustainable livelihoods as the major causes of trafficking.
In his remarks, Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki, represented by Yinka Omorogbe, commissioner of Justice and Attorney-General, noted that his administration had made innumerable contributions to curbing the menace.
Earlier, the Deputy Ambassador of Italy to Nigeria, Tarek Chazli, who said Edo State had always proven to be a trusted partner in ending trafficking, promised that the Italian government was willing to partner serious organisation like UN Women.
“We have found a reliable partner in Edo state and that is why we want to work with him,” he stated.
Also speaking, the Acting zonal Commander, National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking Persons (NAPTIP), Edo state, Rosemary Amogogo reiterated the agency’s commitment towards the fight against human trafficking and forced migration.
