RIGHTS-NIGERIA: Trafficking of Girls Centre of UN Group Debate

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, May 27 2002 (IPS) - Official representatives from Nigeria responded Monday to human rights groups that charge the African country’s government lacks the political will to confront the problems of trafficking sexual exploitation of girls.

The denunciations about child slavery, sexual exploitation, trafficking and prostitution involving Nigeria practically dominated the first session of the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, a body of the United Nations that began its annual session Monday in Geneva.

Nigerian diplomat M. Omotosho refuted the charges, stating that his country’s authorities make “enormous efforts” to try to wipe out such violations against minors.

But attorney Churchill Ohaeto Ibeneche, executive director of the Consulting Centre for Constitutional Rights and Justice (C3RJ), called on the Nigerian federal government and the state and municipal authorities to confront the situation “with the seriousness it deserves.”

One formula for doing so is to create jobs, because across Nigeria, with some 125 million people, “many men and women do not have gainful employment,” said the director of C3RJ, an entity based in the southern city of Port Harcourt.

Africa is in the grips of criminal organisations that control the trafficking and sexual exploitation of girls, and Nigeria is in its jaws, said Ibeneche.

Nigeria is the African country that provides most to the global sex industry, with 70 percent of the 70,000 of trafficking victims from Africa. The rest come principally from Ghana, Gabon and Cote d’Ivoire, reported the attorney.

Ibeneche cited Harold Koko, of the Nigerian embassy in Rome, who calculates that 70 percent of the young Nigerian women who fall victims to traffickers end up in Italy.

Sister Eugenia Bonetti, of the Roman Catholic organisation Caritas, reported that at least 30,000 trafficked girls and women from Nigeria can be found in Italy today and range in age from 15 to 25.

“Most of the girls never knew they would end up working as prostitutes in their destination countries,” said the C3RJ director, adding that other European recipients of these Nigerian victims include Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands and Spain.

One of the independent experts of the UN Working Group, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, a Brazilian national, stated that there is a burden on the countries of the developing South and of the industrialised North to confront the problem of girls who are trafficked for sexual exploitation.

Pinheiro said, in the case of prostitution, the international community must be concerned not only with the supply, but also the demand. “It must be a shared responsibility,” he said.

Representatives of Catholic organisations had recognised the positive practices of the Italian police and authorities in this regard, as they seek out special institutions to protect the girls who have fallen victim to traffickers, said Pinheiro.

Trafficking in women is one of the most lucrative illicit businesses in the world today. The International Organisation for Migration (OIM) calculates that the phenomenon moves six to 12 billion dollars each year.

The United Nations estimates the figure at around seven billion dollars.

Nigerian diplomat U. Saki objected during Monday’s opening session of the Working Group, charging that the matter of sex industry trafficking cannot be generalised and blamed on his country alone.

The problem is not national, because in Nigeria it is only found in two or three provinces, stated Saki.

Nigeria’s Foreign Relations Minister has instructed the embassy in Rome to take charge of the matter, and there is a special office there for attending to cases of trafficked Nigerian girls, said the diplomat.

Another crime Ibeneche denounced was child slavery, “the kidnap, sale or attempted sale of children in Nigeria and other African countries.” He said it has taken on “frightening dimensions.”

“Smuggling of children across Nigeria’s borders with Gabon, Benin, Niger, Cameroon, Togo and Cote d’Ivoire is no longer news but a practical reality,” he added.

Boys are exploited as farm labour while girls are forced into prostitution, sold at prices varying from 100 to 150 dollars, depending on the physical appearance of the child.

In presenting his denunciation of child slavery, much of the evidence in the cases Ibeneche mentioned originated in the communications media.

The Nigerian diplomats objected to the charges made by the non- governmental organisations, claiming they were based solely on information from the press.

Saki, the Nigerian embassy’s representative to the international organisations based in Geneva, said the accusations are “exaggerated and unreliable”.

Nigeria is not the country with most child trafficking, he said. In many cases, this phenomenon follows cultural practices. One cannot say, therefore, that the government is involved, Saki stated.

The Nigerian official maintained that many of these children know what awaits them because there is a great deal of information available, including via television, to raise public awareness about the problem.

In some Nigerian villages there are streets filled with businesses that have opened as a result of the remittances sent home by victims of trafficking, acknowledged the diplomat.

The Working Group, which ends its sessions May 31, dedicates its annual efforts to debate on the exploitation of children, particularly in the contexts of prostitution and domestic servitude.