HUMAN TRAFFICKING: OF VICTIMS AND ONLOOKERS
By Emmanuel Onwubiko
It is exactly twenty four hours to the 2009 valentine celebration, an epochal event that celebrates love in its purity and also serves as a landmark process of ritualising the ever urgent need for members of the human race to do all within their powers to preserve and respect the dignity of the human person. But a shocking revelation emerged from no other quarter but from one of the World’s most credible institutions- that is the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, an arm of the larger United Nations Organization that undertakes the formulation of international policies on how humanity could effectively curb the rising international and transnational organized crime of all shapes and dimensions. This revelation has it that most countries of the World are not really doing enough to check the ravaging menace of People Trafficking which is popularly regarded as the modern day version of Human slave trade.
But Nigeria contrary to popular expectation has done very well in the national effort to curb the menace of human trafficking within and outside of our shores. Reason: the action adopted so far by the charismatic Executive Secretary of the National Anti-Human Trafficking Agency [NAPTIP] Mrs. Carol Ndaguda, a national honours’ award recipient and her team of experts in the agency has gone a very long way in bringing the problems posed by the ever increasing activities of the dare devil gangs of Human traffickers in Nigeria to the front burners of public debate. This is good news to Nigeria and especially to the current political leadership because if not for any other thing, the Government will be praised for sustaining the fight against Human Trafficking.
The United Nations in the recent report on the incidents of people trafficking stated in very unambiguous terms that the World must do more to confront the largely unstudied and neglected phenomenon of people trafficking even as the World body stated that very little is known about the problem that no estimate can be given of the number affected. The report points to a more basic problem; that is the lack of a common understanding of what human trafficking is, and whom it affects. Antonio Maria Costa, the Executive Director of the United Nations Anti-Crime Agency whom this writer met in 2005 at the United Nations anti-crime congress in Thailand, recently told the British Broadcasting Corporation that people trafficking is a crime that shames us all. In the report titled ‘Global Report on Trafficking in Persons’, the United Nations paints a picture of a shadowy form of human slavery little understood by Government and only rarely adequately tackled. The report points out that the most commonly used term for the problem- ‘’people trafficking’’- itself emphasises the transaction aspects of the crime, rather than the day to day experience of modern day enslavement. And it suggests the trafficking phenomenon is little understood in all its forms from child soldiering to sweatshop labour, domestic servitude and even entire village in bondage. The United Nations’ report cites statistics suggesting that sexual exploitation is the most common form of human trafficking [at 79 percent] followed by forced labour at 18 percent. According to the United Nations, the above statistical data may be an ‘optical illusion’ because sexual exploitation is highly visible in cities along the highways while forced labour is hidden.
This is a fact in the context of Nigeria. This is because in cities such as Lagos and Abuja, the problem of domestic forced labour in the guise of house helps is definitely on the increase but not too many people regard this phenomenon as evil since virtually everybody is doing it. But if everybody is doing it does it legitimize the action of child labour? The answer to this question is definitely in the negative since a crime remains a crime no matter the frequency or the number of people engaged in it. Why should a parent surrender his or her child voluntarily as a maid or nanny to some persons very far away from their homes just because the family is not economically empowered to meet up with its financial obligations? Child labour even among the family circles is also on the rise because of the high poverty related situations that afflict the greater majority of Nigerian families. The United Nations’ current report on people trafficking attempts to provide some reasons why forced labour is in the rise globally. The United Nations said that why not much is known about forced labour is because ‘’we only see the monster’s tail’’. How many hundreds of thousands of victims are slaving away in sweatshops, fields, mines, factories, or trapped in domestic servitude? Their numbers will surely swell as the economic crisis deepens the pool of potential victims and increasing demand for cheap goods and services. Another alarmingly shocking aspect of the recent report is the fact that women offenders involved in people trafficking are higher than their male counterparts. The United Nations told us that it is a fact that female offenders have a more prominent role in people trafficking than in any other crime, with women accounting for more than 60 percent of convictions in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The United Nations office for Drugs and Crimes’ chief puts it appropriately that; ‘’what we know is the tip of the iceberg, but have no assessment of the iceberg itself.’’
But do we really need the United Nations to tell us in Nigeria that people trafficking is a serious emerging problem? I think sincerely that we need not wait for the World body to tell us about a fact that is well known to every Tom, Dick, Harry and Hassan in Nigeria. Virtually every family live with the hard fact that one of their members is deeply involved in prostitution never mind the rapidly growing ‘’I am -holier -than -thou attitude of most religiously minded Nigerians. If in doubt of what I am saying here then go to any of our University hostels especially the female hostels and see what is happening in those places that have largely been transformed unfortunately to brothels. Some lecturers that I have interacted with told me point blank that they force their fine looking female students to go to bed with them as a way of buying their ways to earning good grades in their studies. These lecturers told me without mincing words that they believe that teachers’ rewards is no more in heaven since they can easily take their beautiful female students to bed some of whom are similarly desperate for higher marks and since the Nigerian Government idiotically made a pronouncement recently that first class university graduates are entitled to automatic employment in the public service and with the serious problem of unemployment in Nigeria, then sexual gratification of university teachers for grades have become common. The problem of lecturer- induced prostitution or sexual enslavement in most Nigerian Universities reached a disturbing dimension so much so that a popular local Nigerian musician Eedris Abdulkareem released a best seller album titled MR LECTURER where he brought up the issue of sexual exploitation of female students in Nigerian Universities by most amorous lecturers. Another shameful aspect of the incident of sexual exploitation of the vulnerable members of the Nigerian society is the rising reported and unreported cases of rape of some teenage girls by members of the Nigerian police all across the Country. All you need to do to understand the serious nature of this growing crime perpetrated by the police operatives in Nigeria is to pay a visit to any detention centre and thoroughly interview the female detainees in the absence of their police guards and what you will hear will be awful and ear full. From 2005 till late 2008, one worked as a Federal Commissioner in the National Human Rights Commission following an appointment by President Olusegun Obasanjo for a -four year tenure and I can confidently report that from our various visits to the various detention centres all across the Country the cases of sexual molestation of female suspects in police custodies were phenomenal and the Government is not concerned about finding practical solution to the menace. Then just pay a visit to the Transcorp Hilton in the Nigeria’s very outrageously expensive capital city and observe the movements of some beautiful teenage girls in and out of the Hotel widely patronized by the political elites in Nigeria and you will understand that the problem of people trafficking is multidimensional because the kind of female trafficking that go on every blessed day in that five star hotel in the heart of Abuja is voluntary human trafficking because these girls who come in droves usually form themselves into organized prostitution rings from their Universities including the University of Abuja and their ring leaders usually work as the pimp –in- chief who usually scouts for the heavy patrons who lodge in the Transcorp Hilton and easily facilitate the passage and trafficking of these visibly teenage and vulnerable girls.
Let me provide a very personal experience that I had from this notorious Transcorp Hilton one night. Driving into the Hotel to take some cold drinks and relax for some hours before heading home which is approximately a walking distance, I was accosted by these two ravishingly beautiful and charming girls who will surely be in their early teens and apparently sounded very courteous. The first girl approached me and demanded whether I have ever tested a virgin girl. Well, I was in no way shocked by that statement since I have worked for nearly two decades as a Human Rights Activists, investigative Journalist and deep thinker and therefore have seen several girls like that. Well I nodded in the affirmative and before you can say Jack, this other girl with generous angelic beauty and smile appeared on the scene and demanded that we moved into the sacred sanctum of one of the hotel rooms or even drive straight home. Wanting to probe further where theses daughters of eve came from and I got the shock of my life because these little angels came all the way from the Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, in the very heart of the conservative Northern Nigeria and these girls are from the Fulani Ethnic nationality- an ethnic group whose members are known as the most conservative tribal people who rarely socialize talk less of engaging in open prostitution. Well this discovery is only the tip of the iceberg but I saw the iceberg because when I invited a mutual friend and announced to him that he can have one of these girls for the night and he sadly told me that he does not have a venue for the night game. Hardly had he ended his sad epistle that one of these girls informed us that we need not border about renting a hotel room since we drove to that place in a fairly roomy automobile and that it is even sweeter doing the thing inside a moving car and that within two hours two of us who are now partners in crime would have finish the job proper and of course settle them for a job well done. For fear of the unknown I stayed away from that evil adventure but I came out of the entire experience richer with the information that one can actually make love while his friend drive round the town. In fact those girls told us that they have indeed experienced that kind of jolly sexual ride over six dozen times in Abuja and stated that why most cars in Abuja have tinted or dark glasses is because of the hidden things that go on with girls of easy virtue. This is how serious the issue of human trafficking for sexual exploitation have become. The other day a so-called National Law maker in Abuja beat up an operative of the States Security Service who confronted him for attempting to smuggle in a teenage prostitute into his hotel room without following through the security screening door. We were told that that matter came up for investigation at the Federal House of Representatives’ committee on Ethics. This Government must double up effort at tackling the incidence of Human trafficking by implementing result oriented economic cushioning measures to ameliorate the widespread poverty afflicting nearly eighty percent [80%] of Nigerians because a poor and hungry person can do all manner of things that debase Human dignity just to get his or her square meals to survive. Something verifiable and practical must be done by the Government at every level in Nigeria to reduce the trend of girl child and boy child drop out from schools in the Northern and South eastern parts of the country. The other day we were sadly confronted with the hard fact that more than ten million children of school age are out of school because of poverty. You can be sure that these ten million Nigerians will end up in forced labour camps or homes of the haves where they will literarily become slaves and the beautiful girls among them will join the growing ranks of trafficked persons for prostitution in the streets of Belgium, Italy and other European capital cities. Government is obliged to stop this trend if we are serious about respecting the Human Rights of our citizens. Anyway, what is the panacea to this crippling social evil in the Nigerian society? It is not enough to shout to high heavens about the problem of people trafficking in Nigeria without providing or proffering workable panacea to the trend. The difference between a philosophically oriented Human Rights Writer and an analyst without any background in Philosophy is that the one with a background in Philosophy talks about a problem and offers workable solution but the other analyst may or may not offer any solution provided he or she has sufficiently analyzed the situation. The analysts often expect the readers to decipher the panacea from the stated problem. The practical solution to the problem of human trafficking in Nigeria is part of what the Executive Secretary of the National Anti-Human Trafficking Agency [NAPTIP] Mrs. Carol Ndaguba is already implementing but that good agency with the very proactive leadership would need enhanced working facilities and financial resources because they are waging a great war against some of the most ferocious crime god fathers some of whom are also the financiers of the ruling political parties in the different part of the country. The other day we were told by the operatives of the National Anti-Human Trafficking Agency that a certain influential Government official was apprehended attempting to smuggle some persons but nothing much has been revealed regarding the identity of that alleged Human Trafficker. But importantly, that federal Agency has attained a good conviction rate in the increasingly slow judicial system in Nigeria and the officials ought to be motivated further. Secondly, the various anti-graft agencies must be empowered in realistic terms to wage successful war against corruption which is responsible for the underdevelopment of the Nigerian society. If corruption in Government offices which leads to mass poverty and responsible for people trafficking is tackled, then the root cause of the evil trend of human trafficking would have been successfully uprooted. Then, lastly but by no means the least of the solution, Nigerian families must voluntarily plan their families and procreate the number of children that they can comfortably take care of. I think it is a wrong understanding of theology for family heads to proudly shout that children come from God and keep overpopulating the public space with children they are unable to send to good schools and provide for their upkeep thereby creating more persons for the people traffickers to happily put to use in the global crime community. In matters of human trafficking both the victims and onlookers like us are in dire need of help because the onlookers are often embarrassed to realize that they can only offer limited assistance to stop the evil practice and the victims who should be assisted are sometime stigmatized by the larger society and the law enforcement agents parade these hapless citizens caught in the web of human trafficking [as victims] as ordinary criminals. This show of shame by the police and other law enforcement agents must stop.
+Emmanuel Onwubiko heads the Human Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria.
