By Sam Olukoya
BENIN CITY, Nigeria, Apr 16 2021 (IPS)

Sandra* had a baby born of rape. The young Nigeria woman had plans of a better life in Europe, but when her ‘recruiters’ abandoned her in Libya she was sexually assaulted and abused. 

But after being deported back to Nigeria Sandra and her young son face daily discrimination and abuse about the boy’s parentage, even from her own mother and friends. She shares with IPS the effect this verbal abuse has had on her little boy and the impact on her mental health.

“I feel bad, I feel bad a lot. I feel very terrible for what my son is going through. He is not supposed to go through this kind of pain no matter what. It is not his fault, he is not the one who caused it,” she says.

*Not her real name.

This is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Airways Aviation Group.

The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ) is pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7 which ‘takes immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms’.

The origins of the GSN come from the endeavours of the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders signed on 2 December 2014. Religious leaders of various faiths, gathered to work together “to defend the dignity and freedom of the human being against the extreme forms of the globalisation of indifference, such us exploitation, forced labour, prostitution, human trafficking” and so forth.

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