Human and Drug Trafficking: Changing the Narrative in Nigeria (1)

The Crime Reporters Association of Nigeria (CRAN), on the 4th of July 2017, held a one-day seminar to mark the International Day against Drug and Human Trafficking. Themed ‘Human and Drug Trafficking: Changing the Narrative in Nigeria’ the event held under the distinguished chairmanship of Mr. Wale Olaoye, MD/CEO, Halogen Security Company Ltd. Serialized in two parts, we present the first part of the excerpts of his speech.

Protocols

The Director-General, Nigerian Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA); the Commandant-General, Nigerian Immigration Service; the Commissioner of Police, Lagos State; the President and Members of the Executive Committee, Crime Reporters Association of Nigeria; Guest Lecturers and Facilitators of this event; Members of the Press; Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen.

It was with great pleasure that I accepted the offer of the organizers of this event to chair this seminar. Owing to its importance in addressing and changing the course of the current negative narrative of Nigeria on both human and drug trafficking. I was further emboldened and motivated to be here in person based on my findings when I took the deliberate step to research the comparative status of Nigeria on the subject of Human and Drug trafficking both locally and on comparative studies on peer review basis internationally.

I am not an expert on the subject, so my job here is to challenge the lectures, discussants as well as the participants to ensure that the quality of engagement and outcome meets the expectation of the organizers and participants and most importantly the agencies of government charged with the responsibility to manage this global menace and dent on our humanity to unravel and throw up solutions that will truly change the narrative and positively so come same time next year.

I will, therefore, in this address, only reveal what, in my own humble findings, appear to be the present narrative on the subject and to a large extent the reason why we are assembled here by the organizers of this great event which, to my mind, is a patriotic and noble endeavour.

The current narrative

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) defines Human Trafficking as ‘the acquisition of people by improper means such as force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them’.  This exploitation takes a number of forms, but the most prominent and disturbing means is ‘sexploitation’ or sex trafficking.

Sex trafficking, as defined by Webster dictionary, is the illegal business of recruiting, harbouring, obtaining or providing a person – especially a minor – for the purpose of sex. It is a form of modern day slavery which often involves some form of forced or coerced exploitation that is not limited to prostitution and has become a problem that is growing significantly enough to be identified as a form of modern day slavery.

Sex trafficking is a form of human trafficking. Other forms include labour trafficking, domestic servitude, forced labour, etc.

According to UNDOC, while drug trafficking is a global illicit trade involving the cultivation, manufacture, distribution, and sale of substances which are subject to drug prohibition laws, UNODC says it is continuously monitoring and researching global illicit drug markets in order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of their dynamics.

Now that we have working definitions for these activities we can now begin to look into the nature and extent to which they threaten the population, both locally and globally. Often times, you will find that these problems usually progress from the local scenes to the global scenes. The falling values of our Nigeria society, rising global levels of crime, rising global levels of organized crime and syndicates, as well as desperate schemes to make money, are all contributing factors to human and drug trafficking.

What we have is a global menace. Are we able to track the progress rate by next year? It is good to discuss the problems. However, it is imperative that we find out what actions have been put in place and more importantly how do we measure the effects of the actions taken over time. As we can see, the prevailing statistics are not looking good.

About 1.2 million children are trafficked every year (UNICEF). The chronically under-reported problem affects at least 20.9 million people globally (CNN, 2017). China is currently being tipped as the country with the highest level of human trafficking. According to Compassion: Most child prostitutes are under the age of 12; a child prostitute can serve up to 1, 500 clients a year; every year, child sex tourism victimizes about two million children; an average business man pays as little as $5 for a child prostitute; sex tourists are usually 25% American, 18% German, 14% Australian, and 18% British; 78% of prostituted children acquire an STD; 8 out of 12 child prostitutes usually have an abortion; up to 90% of children rescued from brothels are infected with HIV; in India, it takes only 48 hours to lure a street child into prostitution; in Colombia, 65, 000 children are prostituted; in Brazil, there are 500 under-age prostitutes; in Kenya, 30% of child prostitutes are HIV positive; in The Philippines, there are 100, 000 children in the sex industry. These are realities emerging from human and drug trafficking.

Information made available by the US Government reveals that human trafficking has surpassed the illegal sale of arms, that trafficking will surpass the illegal sale of drugs in the next few years, that drugs are used once and they are gone, but that victims of child trafficking can be used and abused over and over. A $32 billion-a-year industry, human trafficking is on the rise and is in all 50 states. According to Ark of Hope for Children, 4.5 million of trafficked persons are sexually exploited, up to 300, 000 Americans under 18 are lured into the commercial sex trade every year. About 14,500 – 17,500 of those victims are trafficked into the United States each year.

The Nigerian situation

NDLEA report reveals that in 2014, Nigeria scored higher than other African countries in cannabis seizure. Illicit drugs seized in 2013 by the NDLEA weighed 339, 968kg with an estimated street value of N34b. This mass is further broken down into cannabis 205, 373kg, psychotropic substances 133, 920kg, methamphetamine 340.8kg, cocaine 290.2kg, heroine 24.53kg, amphetamine 19.29kg, and ephedrine 0.2g. According to the report, in 2013 alone, a total of 3, 271 drug-dependent persons were successfully counseled in NDLEA facilities nationwide. This is broken down into 3, 062 males and 209 females. Additional 802 treated cases were reported by hospitals and other drug dependence treatment centres in Nigeria. The agency also said that in 2015, it informed that Nigeria has the highest numbers of persons serving jail terms for drug-related offences worldwid e. These will tell you the extent of the local drug problems that we have in Nigeria.

The US Trafficking in Persons Report 2016 states the following facts: Nigeria is a source, transit, and destination country for women and children subjected to forced labour and sex trafficking; Nigerian trafficking victims are recruited from rural and, to a lesser extent, urban areas; women and girls for domestic servitude & sex trafficking and boys for forced labour in street vending, domestic service, mining, stone quarrying, agriculture, textile manufacturing, and begging; young boys in Koranic schools, commonly known as “Almajiri children,” are subjected to forced begging; Nigerian women and children are taken from Nigeria to other West and Central African countries, as well as to South Africa, where they are exploited for the same purposes; Nigerian women and girls are subjected to sex trafficking throughout Europe; Nigerian women and children are also recruited and transported to destinations in North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia, where they are held captive in the commercial sex industry or forced labour; Women from other countries in West Africa transit Nigeria to destinations in Europe and the Middle East, where they are subjected to forced prostitution; Children from other West African countries are subjected to forced labour in Nigeria, including in granite and gold mines; Nigeria is a transit point for children from other countries in West Africa, who are then subjected to forced labour in Cameroon and Gabon; Various NGOs continued to report that children in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps in northeast Nigeria were victims of labour and sex trafficking; during the reporting period, Boko Haram continued to forcibly recruit and use child soldiers as young as 12 years old and abduct women and girls in the northern region of Nigeria, some of whom it subjected to domestic servitude, forced labor, and sex slavery through forced marriages to its militants; NGOs and international observers also reported civilian vigilante groups, often identified as the Civilian Joint Taskforce (CJTF), recruited and used child soldiers, sometimes by force; The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons and Other Related Matters (NAPTIP) received a larger operating budget, identified and provided services to a large number of victims, and continued extensive awareness campaigns throughout the country.

 

To be continued.