The presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 elections, Peter Obi, has urged the government at all levels to fight poverty and invest in education, and health as a means of combating trafficking in humans.
He said this on Tuesday via his X handle while calling for measures to combat the menace as the globe commemorates World Day against Trafficking in Persons.
Obi, a former governor of Anambra state said “trafficking in persons remains a global societal issue that must be addressed, with measures devised to combat the menace.”
A report titled ‘The Global Slavery Index’ in 2023 by an international human rights group, Walk Free, stated that more than 1.6 million Nigerians are trapped in modern slavery.
According to the report, Nigeria ranked fifth among countries with the highest number of people in modern slavery in Africa.
The report added that “an estimated one in 60 IDPs in North-East Nigeria experienced at least one of these slavery-related abuses. In North-East Nigeria, Boko Haram and its factions have recruited thousands of children to undertake support roles or engage in violence, including suicide attacks.
“The group has also abducted girls to be forcibly married or provide sexual services to its members.
“Nigerian girls seeking employment as domestic helpers to help pay for schooling are also subjected to domestic servitude.”
It added that the number of orphanage homes in Nigeria contributed significantly to modern slavery.
“In Nigeria, some orphanages have been linked to “baby factories,” where traffickers hold women against their will, rape them, and force them to carry and deliver a child for selling.”
According to the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, between 2019 and 2022, 61 per cent of human trafficking in Nigeria happens internally, while 39 per cent is cross-border, while external trafficking prey on vulnerable women who are sold false promises of working in well-paid jobs in the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Italy, Libya, and Lebanon, among others.
“Insecurity in different parts of the nation, high levels of poverty, high rates of unemployment, and porous borders, have been identified as some of the major drivers of human trafficking in Nigeria.
“The government must, therefore, take more decisive actions against this societal issue by investing in human development through investments in education, health and fighting poverty,” said Obi.
He added that this would give the people a better quality of life, enable them to understand their rights as humans and give them access to better opportunities in life.
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