RIGHTS-NIGERIA: Trafficking of Young Girls Thrives

By Toye Olori Reprint | | Print |

Toye Olori

BENIN, May 21 1999 (IPS) - The traditional ruler in Nigeria’s ancient city of Benin is far from happy with the reputation his area is gaining both in Nigeria and internationally.

Omonoba Erediewa, traditional ruler of Benin Kingdom, despatched his representatives to Lagos recently to identify young girls from Benin who had been deported from Italy.

Forty-seven Nigerian girls, aged between 15 and 20 years, were deported from Italy, and most of them were from Benin in the midwestern Edo State.

Many of these young girls are used in prostitution and drug trafficking rings. Often from poor homes, the girls are lured by the prospects of earning huge sums of money.

They are sent abroad by men and other women who have been in the trades. These sponsors purchase their tickets and procure fake travel documents for the girls, who are then transported to neighbouring African countries where they obtain visas for European countries.

In an interview with IPS, the Italian ambassador to Nigeria, Giovanni Germano, says often the girls are duped into believing that they are going to Europe for legitimate jobs.

“The syndicates issue them with forged travelling documents on the pretext that they will offer them lucrative jobs. The girls are subsequently forced into various illicit activities, such as slavery, sex-hawking, advance fee fraud and the drug business,” Germano says.

Those girls recently deported from Italy, he adds, had become house slaves and had been “illegally exported to Italy through neighbouring European countries”.

John Omorodion, a teacher in Benin, says that young girls and their parents, “innocently believe that the girls are going to get good jobs in Europe.”

J.O. Omobogie, a representative of the traditional ruler of Benin, says that the trafficking of young girls from his area is an embarrassment to the entire country.

“We feel highly shameful to have seen our children being deported. It is a very embarrassing situation to the country, their homes and families,” he says.

Alhaji Ilavbare, chairman of Oredo Local Government in Edo, where some of the girls come from, blames the government and Nigerians for the trafficking of Nigerian girls abroad.

“Government has a duty to the public and the public also to government. The side effects of the devaluation of the naira (Nigeria’s currency) made parents support their children to travel outside the country,” Ilavbare says.

“The lure to them has been 98 naira to the dollar. This is what makes them travel abroad to constitute a nuisance to themselves and the country.”

Ilavbare called on the government to improve the economy to discourage young Nigerians from running abroad, and also appealed to parents to educate their children.

Those who were recently sent back to Nigeria from Italy are still in police custody in Lagos, where they are reportedly undergoing tests to determine whether they have the Human Immunodeficiency Virus.

“The need for health officials to examine the deportees delayed their release…,” says Bimbola Ojomo, an Assistant Inspector General of Police.

“The police also wish to determine the reason why they chose to travel to Italy without the appropriate papers,” and also to establish whether they were part of a syndicate, Ojomo says.