Showing posts with label human trafficking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label human trafficking. Show all posts

Thursday, January 23, 2025

Authorities in Nigeria Take Down Child Trafficking Syndicates

Nigerian authorities announced the rescue of over 200 children and the dismantling of multiple gangs and human trafficking networks in a series of nationwide crackdowns that were primarily targeting child exploitation.

Police spokesperson Muyiwa Adejobi revealed that one of the key operations took place in Akure, Ondo State, where a human trafficking network was dismantled, and 14 children, aged between 1 and 7 years old, were rescued.

“Acting on intelligence regarding a missing child, the police uncovered a syndicate responsible for trafficking over 200 children across various locations in the country,” Adejobi said in a statement.

The Nigeria Police Force has ramped up its initiatives to combat human trafficking and illegal baby factories, focusing on intelligence-led operations to disrupt organized networks.

The announcement follows another major breakthrough two weeks ago in Plateau State, where authorities arrested a prominent pastor linked to a large child-trafficking syndicate. In that operation, 13 children were rescued, highlighting Plateau State as a growing hotspot for trafficking activities.

The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has also exposed trafficking activities in Kaduna State involving a group called ACHAD Life Mission International. The organization, which claims to promote African traditions and humanitarian aid, is accused of exploiting vulnerable individuals under the guise of charity. NIS officials noted that these groups often operate covertly, making detection challenging.

In a statement, Plateau State’s Gender and Equal Opportunities Commission raised concerns about the region’s rising child trafficking crisis, revealing that over 100 victims were rescued in the past year alone. The commission emphasized the urgent need for stronger institutional frameworks and community engagement to prevent exploitation and protect vulnerable children.

Local authorities pledged to continue their efforts to dismantle trafficking networks and ensure the safety of children. However, they acknowledged the need for greater resources and public awareness to combat the growing threat of human trafficking in Nigeria.

These operations underline the scale of the challenge in addressing trafficking in the country, but they also demonstrate Nigeria’s commitment to fighting organized exploitation and protecting its most vulnerable citizens.

By Nneoma Omeje, OCCRP

Monday, January 20, 2025

New Sect Linked to Human Trafficking Emerges in Nigeria

The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has uncovered a sect in Kaduna, northwestern Nigeria, linked to human trafficking and child separation. Known as ACHAD Life Mission International, the group “neither believes in Islam nor Christianity but preaches the restoration of African tradition and support to humanity,” said A.A. Aridegbe, Principal Staff Officer to the NIS Comptroller General, in a statement seen by HumAngle.

The NIS identified Yokana, who resides in Jos, Plateau State, North-central Nigeria, as the sect’s leader. “The sect has been canvassing for members both within and outside Nigeria,” Aridegbe added.

Plateau State has recently been identified as a hotspot for human trafficking, particularly affecting children. Olivia Dazyem, Chairperson of the Plateau State Gender and Equal Opportunities Commission, revealed that over 100 trafficking victims were rescued in the past year.

“The insecurity challenge which bedevilled the state for some years now exposed our vulnerabilities to the point that we have more widows and more orphans on our hands,” Dazyem said. “We have internally displaced camps in the state, and the situation has been exploited by people who do not mean well for our state and our children; they came under the guise of offering help. In their ignorance and lack of awareness, some parents unknowingly allow their children to be trafficked. Many times, with the slightest information on an organisation, most parents bring their children to them.”

These gaps are fertile ground for groups like ACHAD Life Mission International to exploit.

On Dec. 2, 2024, the Nigerian Police Force arrested a child-trafficking syndicate led by Dayo Bernard, a pastor with the End Time Army Ministry in the Jos-Bukuru metropolis. The operation resulted in the rescue of five children, aged 2 to 4, who had been abducted from their homes in Kwande, Qua’an Pan Local Government Area, Plateau State.

“He [referring to Dayo] went [to Kwande] in the disguise of evangelism, where he told the parents that he had an orphanage and convinced them to release their children to him for sponsorship from nursery schools to higher institutions,” said Olumuyiwa Adejobi, the spokesperson of the Nigerian Police Force.

Bernard confessed to abducting and selling 13 other children at varying prices.

Oluwafunmilayo Para-Mallam, National Coordinator of Christian Women for Excellence and Empowerment in Nigerian Society (CWEENS), a faith-based organisation that has been at the forefront of combating child trafficking in the state, revealed that the children are usually sold for amounts ranging from ₦350,000 to ₦750,000.

In Dec. 2024 alone, the CWEENS rescued 13 trafficked children in Plateau State. The children received shelter and psychological support before reuniting with their families through the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development.

Local authorities say efforts to combat human trafficking in Plateau State remain ongoing, but the emergence of groups like ACHAD Life Mission International underscores the persistent challenges faced by authorities and advocacy groups in protecting vulnerable families and children.

The NIS has directed its border formations to “stay vigilant, and report immediately any sign of the sect, and where possible arrest,” Aridegbe added.

By Johnstone Kpilaakaa, HumAngle

Wednesday, January 8, 2025

Pastor in Nigeria Arrested in Major Child-Trafficking Bust, 13 Children Rescued

Authorities in Nigeria have arrested a prominent pastor and dismantled a major child-trafficking syndicate he led in Plateau State, rescuing 13 children in the process.

Pastor Dayo Bernard, a well-known cleric from the End Time Army Ministry in Bukuru, was identified as the alleged leader of the trafficking ring, local officials said. The operation, described as a significant breakthrough, also led to the arrest of other key members of the network.

Police Commissioner Aliyu Abdulrahman praised the crackdown as a victory for the protection of vulnerable children. “Efforts are intensifying to ensure that those responsible face the full force of the law,” he said.

During police questioning, Bernard reportedly confessed to trafficking at least 13 children, admitting to buying and selling them at varying prices. Authorities said the syndicate targeted families in vulnerable situations, abducting children for illegal adoption or forced labor.

Human trafficking remains a critical issue in Nigeria, with Plateau State frequently identified as a hotspot due to poverty and insecurity. UNICEF estimates tens of thousands of Nigerian children are trafficked annually, with many sent across borders to neighboring countries or beyond.

The rescued children have been placed under the care of child welfare services while efforts are being made to reunite them with their families, officials said.

The investigation is ongoing, with authorities vowing to prosecute those involved and crack down further on trafficking networks operating in the region.

By Nneoma Omeje, OCCRP

Friday, December 27, 2024

‘Modern slavery’: Trapped in Iraq, Nigerian women cry out for help

Sometimes when the pain hits, Agnes* has to pause for several seconds to ride out the excruciating wave. It feels like someone has tied a rope to her insides and is pulling and twisting it, the 27-year-old Nigerian domestic worker says, making it hard to bend or stand up straight.

Agnes’s ordeal started in March in the Iraqi city of Basra when her boss raped her at gunpoint. She fell pregnant, and the man then forced her to undergo a painful abortion. It was so difficult, Agnes said, that she could not sit for three days. Since then, the severe abdominal pains won’t go away, and there’s no one to take her to a hospital.“I just want to go home and treat myself, but I can’t do that,” Agnes said on a phone call from Basra, where she is holed up in a hostel belonging to the recruiting firm that hired her from Nigeria last year. “The man has refused to pay my salary. I don’t know if I am pregnant, but I have not seen my menstruation since then. I just want to go home and check myself and see what’s happening inside me,” she added, her voice breaking.

Al Jazeera is not mentioning Agnes’s real name because she fears reprisals from the staff of the so-called recruiting agency. She is one of hundreds, if not thousands, of people who are caught in a transnational labour network that often sees women from Nigeria and other African countries deceived into domestic servitude in Iraqi cities, activists said.

In Nigeria, the women are hired by a ring of local “agents” who sell them a dream of good pay and good conditions abroad. They get the women to agree, process visas and send them off to recruitment firms in Iraq for a commission of about $500 per woman, according to activists familiar with the system.

Once there, the Iraqi firms ask the women, called “shagalas” (meaning “house worker” in Arabic), to sign two-year contracts and assign them to families or labour-intensive institutions like spas, where they are often expected to work more than 20 hours a day for monthly pay of $200 to $250. In many homes, the women are subject to inhumane treatment: They go days without food, are beaten and are not provided living quarters.

Some, like Agnes, also face sexual abuse and rape. Several women told Al Jazeera stories of victims who had faced so much abuse and torture that they ended up dead although these cases have not been independently confirmed.

“It’s a form of modern slavery,” said Damilola Adekola, co-founder of Hopes Haven Foundation, a Nigerian NGO that helps track women in Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries where abuse of African domestic workers is rife. “These Iraqi agents and the families [the women work for] often tell them, ‘We’ve bought you, so you have to work.’ The contracts they sign go against any type of international law because there’s no medical care and they have to work obscene hours.”

These women often lack knowledge of what a normal workplace should be like because the Nigerian recruiters target women from rural communities who are usually uninformed about the dangers, Adekola added. Although some have diplomas, they often don’t know about the realities of post-war Iraq or that Baghdad is not a country. “Once they hear they can get on an airplane, they just jump at the opportunity,” he said.


A chance to ‘hustle’ abroad goes badly

A native of Nigeria’s Ekiti, a small state northeast of the commercial capital, Lagos, Agnes was working as a domestic worker at home when she heard of an opportunity that could take her abroad.

She paid 100,000 naira ($64) to a local recruiting agent, a family friend whom she trusted, believing that she would be able to make much more money to send home to her ailing mother and nine-year-old son.

Soaring inflation in Nigeria has crippled the naira since 2019. The result has been that Nigerians, young and old, are leaving the country to seek better opportunities. According to an Afrobarometer report this month, more than half of the 200 million population indicated they want to leave the country due to economic hardship with most looking at Europe, North America and the Middle East.

For Agnes, domestic work anywhere else and with the promise of pay that was three times what she normally earned, was an answered prayer. She left for Basra from Lagos airport in September 2023 and arrived at the Iraqi recruitment firm she had been “sold” to after a day’s journey.


Once in Iraq, Agnes’s dreams of a comfortable life abroad turned into a nightmare. Her first shock was at the recruitment firm in Iraq. The firm assigned her a first home to work at, but Agnes was badly treated. She wasn’t given food regularly although her boss would force her to work all day, and her phone was seized, she said. When she complained and refused to work, the Iraqi man returned her to the agents, demanding a refund. Angered that she’d caused a loss, two employers from the firm descended on Agnes, she said, hitting her, punching her and smashing her mobile.

“I had to use a bandage on my eye for three days,” Agnes said. In a photo taken days after the beating and seen by Al Jazeera, Agnes’s right cheek is red and swollen. The firm then forced her to go to a second home, which is where she said the rape took place.

Now, Agnes is back in the firm’s hostel, penniless. After the pains in her abdomen rendered her unable to work, she said the boss who raped her abandoned her there and refused to pay six months of her salary.

“If I knew what this country is like, I wouldn’t have come here. If I knew it’s not safe and there is no respect for life, I wouldn’t have come. I just thought I could also come here and hustle. Please help me get out of here,” she pleaded.

Although she has a place to sleep and she, as well as dozens of women at the hostel, get some noodles and rice daily to cook, Agnes is fearful. The agency has refused to send her back to Nigeria, insisting that she has one more year to work on her contract, despite her debilitating pain.

Agnes said she tries not to aggravate staff of the firm to avoid beatings. Several women there have either been beaten or have been locked up for days without food because their bosses complained of their conduct, she said. Al Jazeera is not revealing the name of the company in order to protect the women, but we did seek official responses regarding the firm from the Iraqi Ministry of Interior, which is in charge of Iraq’s police. We have not yet received a response.


Trafficking of Africans rife in Middle East

Despite several laws against labour trafficking, the practice is rife in post-war Iraq. The country is both a source and destination country for trafficked victims with an estimated 221,000 people currently in slavery-like conditions, according to a November report from the International Organization of Migration (IOM). Most documented victims are from Iran and Indonesia.

The experiences of African female domestic workers in Iraq are largely undocumented, but the challenges they face have been going on for years. Black people have historically been seen as slaves in the country and still face discrimination today.

In 2011, news reports documented how dozens of Ugandan women were tricked by local agents into believing they would be working on United States army bases when the country was under American occupation after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s government. Instead, the women were “sold” to Iraqi firms for about $3,500 and forced to work in dire conditions. Eventually, some escaped with the help of US army staff, but others were never accounted for.

Similar cases of exploitation are being reported across the Middle East, where hundreds of thousands of migrant workers from African and Asian countries are at higher risk of trafficking, according to the IOM.

Under the “kafala” system, which is legal in countries like Lebanon, employers pay for the documentation and travel costs of the foreign workers and use that as leverage to abuse them by confiscating their passports or seizing their pay, reports have shown. The system doesn’t give the worker the right to seek out another employer but does allow employers to transfer contracts to others. Recruitment agencies often use the legal system to employ many workers and then auction the contracts online for huge amounts of money.

It’s unclear to what extent Iraqi authorities investigate agents hiring and “selling” African workers or the individuals who maltreat these women. Authorities however appear to be investigating one case that has garnered widespread attention on Nigerian social media.

Eniola, 28, had, like her counterparts, jumped at the opportunity to earn more money abroad as a domestic worker and arrived in Baghdad in February 2023. However, her boss forced her to work most of the day and allowed her only three to four hours of sleep. When she complained, the woman routinely tortured her with tasers or hit her with an iron rod. She doused her with hot tea or water on several occasions too.

In videos Eniola sent to Al Jazeera, her fingers, which appear to be broken, are bandaged, and scars from burns and wounds dot her body. She found the courage to finally escape in August after more than a year of abuse. Al Jazeera is only using Eniola’s first name to protect her identity.

“She had just beat me when she put some water on the fire and told me to enter the bathroom,” Eniola told Al Jazeera. She feared her boss wanted to pour hot water on her, so she fled. “I don’t know where I got the courage, but I ran outside.”

Bleeding, Eniola ran to groups of locals who, shocked by her wounds, helped her get to a police station where she handed herself in. She was never paid by her boss.

In a statement, Iraq’s interior ministry told Al Jazeera it was not aware of the two women’s cases, but vowed to investigate the matter.

An officer at the country’s Directorate for Residence Affairs in charge of residency violations, and where Eniola has been transferred, told Al Jazeera the abusive boss had been “invited by government agencies for questioning and was bieng investigated”.

On Tuesday, Eniola confirmed she was arraigned in court alongside her former boss, and a years’ worth of salary was handed to her. Eniola, only willing to go home, said she declined to press charges against the Iraqi woman. Authorities plan to force the boss to pay for her ticket home, she said, but it’s unclear when that will happen.

There are several other Nigerian women in detention for various offences: fighting with their bosses, overstaying their residence permits or “taking salaries and running away,” said the Iraqi official, who is not authorised to speak to the press.

Nigerian domestic workers Al Jazeera spoke to however say their Iraqi bosses have been known to take advantage of language barriers and some wrongfully accuse the women of crimes.


Nigeria fails to act quickly, activists say

Activists blamed Nigerian authorities for failing to regulate the industry and allowing groups of women to head to Middle Eastern countries for domestic work without proper documentation or a system to track them. Some reports also accuse staff of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) of taking bribes from local agents and turning a blind eye at airports to clear cases of exploitation.

Al Jazeera put these allegations to the NIS via email. In a statement, the NIS said it would respond to the accusations but did not reply in time for publication.

“Immigration is never a crime, and we are not saying people should not find work abroad, but there should be a government system where these women are registered and taxed, even if it’s a small token,” Adekola of the Hopes Haven Foundation said. The organisation helped alert authorities to Eniola’s and Agnes’s cases.

“With that, the government can monitor the women’s information and work situation. If these employers torturing them know that the ladies are being monitored by their government, they’ll not try what they’re doing to them.”

Officials at the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), the Nigerian anti-trafficking agency, first sounded the alarm about the exploitative recruitment drives to Iraq in May 2023.

Some rogue agents who take part in recruiting and “selling” the women are known by NAPTIP and are under investigation, an official who had not been authorised to speak to the media and who we are therefore not naming, told Al Jazeera.

Agnes’s and Eniola’s cases are being investigated, the official said but did not give a timeline as to when the women might be repatriated. Nigeria does not have an embassy in Iraq, and the official said the agency was liaising with the Nigerian consulate in Jordan.

In Basra, Agnes is still holed up in her recruitment agency’s hostel, hoping for a way out. She can hardly stand up from her bed, she said. This week, some women arrived freshly from Nigeria and Uganda, and have been sent to their assigned homes to work, she said. The women, Agnes added, were fearful after seeing her condition but were forced to go.

“I just want to go home because I’m not OK,” she said. “I’m barely alive. Please help me get out. I’m too young to die here.”

*Name changed to protect anonymity

By Shola Lawal, Al Jazeera


Woman who ran prostitution ring extradited from Nigeria to Italy

Monday, August 26, 2024

13-year-old Nigerian girls trapped as sex workers in Ivory Coast

The first French phrases Nigerian teenager Sara* learned when she arrived in the city of Bouaké were “Alors baiser” and “c’est douce”, to initiate sexual activity and then to fake pleasure during the act.

The daughter of her mother’s best friend had told her she was going to the Ivorian city to sell body lotion. Instead, an older woman – a “madam” – who had paid for her travel without her knowledge sent her to brothels in the city every night.

Sara says she is paid between 3,000–5,000 Central African Francs (CFA) – between £3.90 and £6.50 – for every man she sleeps with for a “short-time” and 25,000 CFA for an overnight stay. The money is split three ways between the brothel, Sara and the madam.

Three months after arriving in Bouaké, Sara is still waiting to earn enough to pay off debts of 2.5m CFA to the madam for travel, clothes, sustenance and bribes paid to agents, and return to Nigeria.

“She [the madam] took my Nigerian sim card when I came here, so I couldn’t call my people at home for the first month,” says Sara, who now goes by the name of Sugar and refused to give her real age.

Trafficking is a major crisis in Nigeria, with between 750,000 and 1 million people forced into begging, prostitution, domestic servitude, armed conflict and labour exploitation.

Some of those are being trafficked out of the country. Sara is one of thousands of Nigerian female sex workers scattered across towns and cities in Ivory Coast, according to Nigerian officials who spoke to the Guardian.

The girls and women are mostly trafficked by agents who are taking advantage of record unemployment in Nigeria and operate under the guise of offering better paid work. Ten years ago, the Nigerian naira was triple the value of the CFA; today N1 equals 0.38 CFA.

Due to its stable economy and prostitution being legal, although soliciting sex is not, Ivory Coast has become an attractive destination for sex work. Some victims go on to become madams who source other girls, to recoup money they spent and to regain their own freedom.

Across Nigeria, recruiting agents go into rural communities or post in jobseekers’ groups on Facebook, talking ambiguously about hustles that yield plenty of rewards and sending photographs of girls and women they have recruited to known madams.

They coach recruits to tell immigration officials, who are sometimes aware of what is happening or simply don’t care enough to carry out proper scrutiny, that they are crossing the border to go to the nearby market in Cotonou, an auxiliary port for Nigeria.

Many recruits say agents, who have been known to be a relative, do not accompany them on the journey but pass their numbers to other agents who guide them across the porous borders. With no means of identification, they gain access by paying bribes of 1,000-2,000 CFA, sometimes paid ahead to the driver by the agents.

Unlike Sara, most of the sex workers trafficked from Nigeria live deep in the Ivorian jungle, far from the eyes of the law.

In Tengréla, 7km (4.3 miles) from the Malian border, there are several artisanal miner’s camps used by men from Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea to earn money before returning to their countries. Nigerian sex workers aged from about 14 to 38 also stay here in small settlements of makeshift tents made of black nylon held together with sticks.

At the maquis – as the small bars are known in Francophone Africa – owned by madams in the settlements, both sets of immigrants fraternise, first publicly and then privately.

“There is an odd belief in some of the gold mining regions that sex helps you find gold, which in turn [fuels] demand for sex trafficking,” says one former Nigerian official who was previously stationed in Ivory Coast. “The cocoa [production] communities also have high sex demands to keep the men satisfied.”

The Guardian spoke to at least two dozen girls and women in the forest, some as young as 15. Some of them said they had been starved for refusing to work or beaten up by angry patrons. Many barely speak French and say they don’t know the country well enough to be able to escape.

Nigerian officials who have managed to repatriate girls trapped as sex workers say they have seen girls as young as 13 in the interior.

“A lot of the girls we found claim to be over 18 and doing sex work of their own free will, but most of the time from their physical appearance, you know they are not,” says the former Nigerian official. “Tests to determine their age, such as scanning a wisdom tooth, cost about 50,000 CFA so you have to talk to them, but if they are insistent, you let them go back.”

Ivory Coast has a law criminalising trafficking, but it is barely enforced, and the country has been criticised by the US state department for its failure to tackle the problem.

The escadron, a notorious Ivorian police unit, has burned down some of the settlements where traffickers operate, but new ones keep springing up, partly because security personnel who come into the jungle allegedly demand weekly bribes of 1,000-2,000 CFA for each trafficked girl.

Adekoye Vincent, spokesperson for the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (Naptip) in Nigeria, declined to comment when questioned about girls trapped as sex workers in Ivory Coast. The Ivorian national police and gendarmerie did not respond to requests for comment.

For Sara, the wait to return home goes on. She was in junior secondary school in Port Harcourt, in Nigeria, before dropping out to travel to Ivory Coast. These days she is learning how to barter condoms for other items.

“I really don’t like the work I’m doing here. I miss my people at home,” she says.

* Names have been changed

By Eromo Egbejule, The Guardian

Related stories: Woman who ran prostitution ring extradited from Nigeria to Italy

25,000 trafficked women, girls from Nigeria trapped in Malian mines

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Baby factories continue to thrive in Nigeria

Child traffickers often abduct girls and young women, take them to isolated locations and impregnate them. When they give birth, their babies are sold to childless couples. The practice has existed for years in Nigeria.

So-called baby making factories are facilities in Nigeria to which girls and young women are lured, impregnated and held against their will until they give birth.

The "factories" are usually small, illegal facilities parading as private medical clinics that house pregnant women and subsequently offer their babies for sale.

In some cases, young women have been held against their will and raped before their babies are sold on the black market.

The practice is largely prevalent in the southeastern states of Abia, Lagos, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo.

Around 200 underground baby factories have been shut over the last five years, according to Nigerian security agencies, however new facilities open to replace the closed ones.

Earlier this month, police officers stormed a hideout in Abia where they rescued 16 pregnant girls and eight young children.

Maureen Chinaka, a police spokeswoman revealed that the rescued girls were between the ages of 17 and 27 and had been told that they would be paid to leave the baby factories without their babies.

Last June, 22 pregnant young girls and two babies were rescued from a facility in the same state, where they had been held hostage.
Why do the factories exist?

There is a thriving market for babies among couples who are struggling to bear their own children. They are willing to pay between 1 million naira (€576) and 2 milion naira (€1,152) for a baby.

There is a higher demand for male babies, which tend to be sold at a higher price than baby girls.

Clare Ohunayo, a Nigerian activist and educationist, told DW that as long as there is demand for babies, the practice will prevail.
Supplying a demand

Ohunayo blames it on high levels of poverty and the stigma that comes with being a childless couple in Nigeria.

"The desperation that drives the baby factory has two sets of players. The first set is driven by the fear of poverty as a result of the socio-economic conditions of Nigeria," she said.

Those who own these facilities where the girls are kept, the men who impregnate them, and the girls themselves are all pushed into it by poverty, according to Ohunayo.

Some young female Nigerians told DW that they remain vulnerable because of their poor living conditions.

"This baby booming industry, even though it has been in existence, the reason it's coming up [is] because people are really really stressed in terms of striving for a daily living," a young resident of Abuja said.

Another Abuja resident told DW that: "We are experiencing an increase in crime rates due to hardship and poverty."

But not everyone blames it on poverty.

"Actually I think what is causing this menace has to do with moral decadence. Immoral people are desperate to make money. This is why you see this kind of thing happening, but to me I think it's very bad," said one Nigerian man.

Giving birth to children is considered signifcant in many African societies, and often couples unable to have their own children face humiliation, even from family members.

The demand for male children makes the practice especially lucrative, according to police officials.

"On the other side you have childless couple who want to avoid the stigma of [being] childless," said Ohunayo, describing a major cultural factor behind the baby factories.
Ending the baby factory business

Florence Marcus, a lawyer with the Abuja-based Disability Rights Advocate Center told DW there are laws to help tackle the menace.

"This issue of baby factories is a gross violation of the rights of the victims, especially these young ladies who are often taken to these facilities without theor consent," she said.

"The Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act prohibits all forms of violence against person, particularly women and girls. The law provides maximum protection and effective remedies for the victims and also punishment for the offenders."

Several arrests have been made across the Nigerian states in which the practice is prevalent.

Zakaria Dauda, spokesman for the National Agency for the Prohibition in Trafficking in Persons, a government body, told DW that the organization will continue to make arrests and ensure that pepatrators are punished.

"We know [with] the issue of baby factory most victims are usually young girls. We warn people of the dangers of such vices," he said.

"And those who become suspects, we take them [in] for people to also know that there is a crime being perpetrated called sale of babies."

By Ben Shemang, DW

Related stories: Video - Baby trafficking syndicate arrested in Imo state

Baby factory raided in Lagos, Nigeria

16 pregnant women freed from baby factory in Nigeria

Monday, May 8, 2023

Senator from Nigeria jailed for 9 years by UK court for kidney-harvesting plot

A wealthy Nigerian politician, his wife and a doctor were jailed by a London court on Friday for trafficking a street trader from Lagos to Britain to illegally harvest his kidney for a transplant for their seriously ill daughter.

Britain's Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said Ike Ekweremadu had been sentenced to nine years and eight months in Britain's first illegal organ-harvesting prosecution, while his wife Beatrice, 56, was sentenced to four years and six months.

Nigerian doctor Obinna Obeta, 51 - described by prosecutors as a middle man - was jailed for 10 years, the CPS said. All three were convicted in March of conspiring to arrange the travel of a man in order to harvest his organs.

President of the Nigerian senate Ahmad Lawan said earlier in the week he had written to the British judicial authorities seeking clemency for Ekweremadu - an opposition senator and former deputy president of Nigeria's senate - on behalf of the senate.

He said "it was the first time our colleague is getting involved in this kind of thing".

Prosecutors said the couple had brought the man to Britain in February last year with the offer of a few thousand pounds for his organ and the promise of work in Britain.

The case came to light when the man, who had made a living in Lagos selling telephone parts in a market, went to police saying he had been trafficked and someone was trying to harvest his kidney.

The proposed transplant never went ahead as a consultant at London's Royal Free hospital became suspicious about the circumstances surrounding the proposed donor, aged about 21 who cannot be named for legal reasons, who the family had tried to pass off as their daughter's cousin.

Sonia Ekweremadu, the intended recipient of the organ who has a serious and deteriorating kidney condition and requires dialysis, was found not guilty.

By Muvija M, Reuters

Related story: Nigerian politician Ike Ekweremadu, wife, and a doctor guilty of organ trafficking to UK

Friday, March 24, 2023

Nigerian politician Ike Ekweremadu, wife, and a doctor guilty of organ trafficking to UK






 

 

 

 

 

A senior Nigerian politician, his wife, and a doctor have been convicted of organ trafficking, in the first verdict of its kind under the Modern Slavery Act.

Ike Ekweremadu, 60, a former deputy president of the Nigerian senate, his wife, Beatrice, 56, and Dr Obinna Obeta, 51, were found guilty of facilitating the travel of a young man to Britain with a view to his exploitation after a six-week trial at the Old Bailey.


They criminally conspired to bring the 21-year-old Lagos street trader to London to exploit him for his kidney, the jury found.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had been offered an illegal reward to become a donor for the senator’s daughter after kidney disease forced her to drop out of a master’s degree in film at Newcastle University, the court heard. Sonia Ekweremadu was found not guilty.


She cried in court as her parents were sent down from the dock.

In February 2022 the man was falsely presented to a private renal unit at Royal Free hospital in London as Sonia’s cousin in a failed attempt to persuade medics to carry out an £80,000 transplant. For a fee, a medical secretary at the hospital acted as an Igbo interpreter between the man and the doctors to help try to convince them he was an altruistic donor, the court heard.

The prosecutor Hugh Davies KC told the court the Ekweremadus and Obeta had treated the man and other potential donors as “disposable assets – spare parts for reward”. He said they entered an “emotionally cold commercial transaction” with the man.

The behaviour of Ekweremadu, a successful lawyer and founder of an anti-poverty charity who helped draw up Nigeria’s laws against organ trafficking, showed “entitlement, dishonesty and hypocrisy”, Davies told the jury.

He said Ekweremadu, who owns several properties and had a staff of 80, “agreed to reward someone for a kidney for his daughter – somebody in circumstances of poverty and from whom he distanced himself and made no inquiries, and with whom, for his own political protection, he wanted no direct contact”.

Davies added: “What he agreed to do was not simply expedient in the clinical interests of his daughter, Sonia, it was exploitation, it was criminal. It is no defence to say he acted out of love for his daughter. Her clinical needs cannot come at the expense of the exploitation of somebody in poverty.”

Ekweremadu, who denied the charge, told the court he was the victim of a scam. Obeta, who also denied the charge, claimed the man was not offered a reward for his kidney and was acting altruistically. Beatrice denied any knowledge of the alleged conspiracy. Sonia did not give evidence.

WhatsApp messages shown to the court revealed Obeta charged Ekweremadu 4.5m naira (about £8,000) made up of an “agent fee” and a “donor fee”.

Ekweremadu and Obeta admitted falsely claiming the man was Sonia’s cousin in his visa application and in documents presented to the hospital.

Davies said Ekweremadu ignored medical advice to find a donor for his daughter among genuine family members. He said: “At no point in time was there ever any intention for a family member close, medium or distant to do what could be paid for from a pool of donors.”

The judge, Mr Justice Jeremy Johnson, will pass sentence on 5 May.

The chief crown prosecutor, Joanne Jakymec, said: “This was a horrific plot to exploit a vulnerable victim by trafficking him to the UK for the purpose of transplanting his kidney.

“The convicted defendants showed utter disregard for the victim’s welfare, health and wellbeing and used their considerable influence to a high degree of control throughout, with the victim having limited understanding of what was really going on here.”

DI Esther Richardson, from the Metropolitan police’s modern slavery and exploitation command, said: “This is a landmark conviction and we commend the victim for his bravery in speaking against these offenders.”

This story was amended on 23 March 2023 to reflect the fact that Sonia Ekweremadu was found not guilty in the case. It was further amended on 24 March 2023 as it was an Igbo interpreter, not a translator, who was involved.

By Matthew Weaver, The Guardian

Related stories: Nigerian Senator Ike Ekweremadu charged with organ-harvesting

Nigerian senator accused of organ harvesting attempt in UK

Wednesday, March 8, 2023

Woman who ran prostitution ring extradited from Nigeria to Italy

A Nigerian woman who has been wanted in Italy since 2010 has been flown from Abuja back to Rome where she has been sentenced to 13 years in prison for crimes including running a prostitution ring, Italian police said on Wednesday.

Joy Jeff, who is 48, was one of the few women on Italy's most-wanted list, police said in a statement, describing her as a prominent figure in the Nigerian mafia.

The extradition was facilitated by a treaty signed by Nigeria and Italy in 2020. She was arrested in Nigeria on June 4, 2022, on an international warrant issued by Italy, the statement said.

Italian investigators in the eastern city of Ancona said Jeff played a leading role in trafficking women to Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, where they were forced into prostitution by violence and threats. She has been convicted in her absence.

Video released by the Italian police showed the woman being flown from the Nigerian capital Abuja to Ciampino airport in Rome where she was taken away in a wheelchair by police.

"Africa today is a strategic location when looking for fugitives and fighting organised crime," said Vittorio Rizzi, an Italian police chief responsible for international coordination. 

By Keith Weir, Reuters

Related stories: New Nollywood film shines a light on human trafficking in Nigeria

Video - Nigerian women trafficked to Europe for prostitution at 'crisis level'

Gang charged with sex trafficking girls from Nigeria arrested in Italy


Friday, December 9, 2022

25,000 trafficked women, girls from Nigeria trapped in Malian mines

Virtually all states in Nigeria face high human trafficking and no fewer than 25,000 Nigerian women and girls are trapped in the mining areas of Mali, where they are sexually exploited

This was revealed by experts at a three-day media training workshop on “Countering Trafficking In Persons, (CTIP),” organised by Network Against Child Trafficking, Abuse and Child Labour (NACTAL) in collaboration with USAID for journalists from Cross River and seven other states of the federation and Abuja.

Held in Benin, Edo State, the workshop ended on Wednesday.

National President of NACTAL, Abdulganiyu Abubakar, in his remarks at the workshop, said as result of the situation, some countries discriminate against Nigeria when they travel out.

He charged the media to embark on campaigns to tackle issues of trafficking.
Similarly, National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) confirmed the high level trafficking of humans in the country, revealing that it has, till date, rescued 17, 753 victims in the country.

The Zonal Commander of NAPTIP, Benin Zonal Command, Mr. Nduka Nwanwanne, stated that out of the figure, 13,626 are female, while 4,727 are males.

He said: “No fewer than 25,000 Nigerian women and girls are trapped living in shanties in the mining areas in Mali, where they are sexually exploited.”

According to her, prostitution is not human trafficking but the exploitation in prostitution is human trafficking. He described Nigeria as transit and destination on human trafficking, saying it is endemic in Edo and Delta states and all parts of the country.

Human trafficking, according to him, is worth 150 billion dollars in global criminal enterprise and it is the second largest in trans national organised crime after drug trafficking.

One of NACTAL’s resource persons, Nasiru Muazu Isa, said trafficking on humans is huge business and is so sophisticated to the extent that they track their victims with electronic gadgets to know where they are and where they go to.

The Project Manager, NACTAL, Mr. Samuel Olayemi, listed the objectives of the workshop to include: increasing knowledge of media practitioners on CTIP, intensifying media campaigns, strengthening capacity of media practitioners and improving knowledge of participants in developing relevant programmes.

By Anietie Akpan, The Guardian

Related stories: New Nollywood film shines a light on human trafficking in Nigeria

Gang charged with sex trafficking girls from Nigeria arrested in Italy

Video - Nigerian women trafficked to Europe for prostitution at 'crisis level'

Tuesday, November 8, 2022

Nigerian Senator Ike Ekweremadu charged with organ-harvesting

Nigeria’s former deputy Senate president will go on trial in the United Kingdom in January for alleged organ harvesting, a judge has said.

Ike Ekweremadu, 60, is accused with his wife, Beatrice, 56, their daughter, Sonia, 25, and a doctor of bringing a man from Nigeria to have a kidney removed.

The 21-year-old man is said to have raised the alarm after refusing to consent to the operation following preliminary tests at the Royal Free Hospital in London.

The BBC reported that the Ekweremadu family allegedly treated the man like a slave before he ran away and went to Staines police station in Surrey.

Ekweremadu is a senator for the opposition Peoples Democratic Party for Enugu State in southeast Nigeria.

Ekweremadu and his family were arrested at London’s Heathrow Airport in June.

The family and the doctor, Obina Obeta, 50, are accused of conspiracy to arrange the travel of another person with a view of exploitation.

Prosecutors say the kidney was meant for Sonia.

The alleged offence is believed to have taken place between August 1 last year and May 5 this year.

No pleas were entered when the defendants appeared at London’s Central Criminal Court on Monday.

Ekweremadu and Obeta were remanded into custody while Beatrice and Sonia were released on conditional bail.

Judge Mark Lucraft set another hearing date for December 16 and brought forward the defendants’ trial from May to January 31.

Al Jazeera

Related story: Nigerian senator accused of organ harvesting attempt in UK








Friday, June 17, 2022

Nigeria police free 35 teenage girls from prostitution ring

At least 35 teenage girls held captive and forced to work in a prostitution ring in southeastern Nigeria have been rescued after police raided a hotel where they were being held, police said.

The girls between the ages of 14 and 17 were found by police acting on a tipoff in Nkpor town in Anambra state, according to a statement issued by Tochukwu Ikenga, Anambra police spokesman.

The girls were being used for prostitution and some were impregnated so their babies could be sold, said the statement. Four of the girls rescued are pregnant, police said.

Three suspects were arrested in connection with the incident, the police statement said. Rifles and 877,500 naira ($2,112) cash were also recovered, police said.

“The suspects arrested are being interrogated with a view to eliciting information on their involvement and unmasking other gang members,” said the police spokesman. The suspects arrested will be charged at the end of investigations, he said.

The girls freed will be handed over to Nigeria’s National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons for their care while, said the statement.

This is not the first time that police in Nigeria’s southeast have freed young girls who were being held captive and were sexually exploited and forced to have babies that were then sold.


A child trafficking syndicate was uncovered last month in Ebonyi state after it was discovered that a baby had been sold for 355,000 naira ($855), police said. Some babies have in the past been sold for as low as 70,000 naira ($168), police said.

By Chinedu Asadu 

AP

Related story: New Nollywood film shines a light on human trafficking in Nigeria

Video - Nigerian women trafficked to Europe for prostitution at 'crisis level'


Monday, May 17, 2021

1,603 killed, 1,774 abducted in violent attacks across Nigeria in three months

At least 1,603 people were killed in violent attacks across Nigeria between January and March 2021, a report by a non-governmental organisation, Nigeria Mourns, has shown.

The report titled “Violent Incidents Report: January – March 2021″ was published on Sunday.

The group said it gathered its figures through the use of newspaper reports and family sources to track violent killings.

The report also showed that 1,774 people were abducted within the three months under review.

“In the Q1 of 2021, Nigeria continued to experience inordinately high incidents of armed violence with very high body counts. Our tracking shows that at least 1603 persons lost their lives in the country from January – March 2021,” the group said on Twitter.

On the aspect of the perpetrators of the violence, the report revealed that 921 people were killed by suspected bandits, 207 people killed by persons suspected to be members of Boko Haram or its breakaway faction, ISWAP, 205 killed in isolated attacks and 106 lives were claimed by cult clashes.

Also, 79 people died through extra-judicial killings, communal crises led to the death of 53 people and 32 people killed by herdsmen.

A member of the Nigeria Mourns Coalition, Ier Jonathan, said the figures are worrying “but not meant to criticise the government.”
 

Rising insecurity

Nigeria has been battling with various forms of insecurity for years. This led to agitation by many citizens for state police.

As part of efforts to curb the challenges, South-west governors last year created a regional paramilitary outfit, Amotekun.

Also, the governors of the South-east states resolved to maintain a joint security outfit to be called Ebube Agu in April.

Aside from ordinary citizens, different state governors – Samuel Ortom of Benue State, Babagana Zulum of Borno, and Hope Uzodinma of Imo, among others, have been victims of violence as they or their properties were attacked.


Mr Ortom recently knocked the federal government for being complacent in the face of insecurity.

Governor Abubakar Bello of Niger State in early May told journalists that Boko Haram terrorists have been occupying some communities in the state.

He claimed the terrorists have displaced over 3,000 residents of the affected communities.
 

Governors want Buhari to address nation

The 17 governors in southern states of Nigeria, on Tuesday, asked the federal government to “convoke a national dialogue as a matter of urgency.”

They called on President Muhammadu Buhari to “address Nigerians on the challenges of insecurity.”

The National Assembly had also called for a national security summit with the House of Representatives already announcing modalities for one of such.

President Muhammadu Buhari has never shown support for such calls. He also did not endorse the establishment of state police.
 

Buhari’s aide blames ‘evil forces’

Amidst the security challenges, President Buhari’s media aide, Femi Adesina, blamed ‘evil forces’ popularly referred to as ‘Aiye’ in Yoruba as the reason for insecurity in Nigeria.

“…Just as some forces knew the record that was to be achieved by Muhammadu Buhari as Nigerian President, and which he had begun to show since 2015 when he got into office, they positioned themselves against the government

“The lesson? When you are high-flying, the centrifugal forces will come against you, and it would only take the grace of God for you to attain.

“Yoruba people call those forces Aiye. When Aiye is on your case, as it was against Man City, and it is against the Buhari government, you need God, and God alone. Aiye (meaning ‘the world,’ if freely translated) is the negative part of mankind. The pernicious, baleful, sly and scheming part of humanity. If Aiye gets on your matter, you need God and God alone,” his article published on Thursday partly read.

He, however, expressed optimism that Mr Buhari will conquer.

“Who says Nigeria will not rise from its current travails? Who says Aiye will always win? Not where God is involved. And God is involved with Nigeria, our own dear na Under President Buhari, peace and security would be restored. The economy would rebound. Life would be abundant for the people, and Aiye would be left standing small, holding the rump of the flag of a country it thought had gone into oblivion,” he wrote.

By Adejumo Kabir

Premium Times 

Related stories: Nigerian lawmakers demand action on security crisis

Nigeria's Buhari condemns killing of 'tens' of villagers

Search Underway for Kidnapped Students from Nigeria’s Kaduna State 

Wednesday, April 21, 2021

26 people rescued in human trafficking bust in south Nigeria

At least 26 persons including 19 children have been rescued from trafficking during a law enforcement operation in Nigeria’s southern state of Edo, authorities said on Tuesday.

In a statement, Kontongs Bello, a police spokesperson in Edo, said the victims comprise 19 children, one teenager and six women who were trafficked from the southeast states of Ebonyi, Imo, Abia, Anambra and Akwa Ibom.

He said they were heading toward Evbuotubu in Ekenwan road axis of Benin city before rescue came their way.

According to the police spokesman, the women were lured from their various home states by a woman named “Jennifer”, noting that the suspect is now on the run.

“They were lured in a guise that Edo state government is giving financial support to single mothers with newborn babies especially twins,” he said.

“The women said they were forced to go for street begging for their mistress Jennifer. They further stated that only peanut is given to them to take care of their children,” he said.

By David Ochieng Mbewa

CGTN

Related story: New Nollywood film shines a light on human trafficking in Nigeria

 



Monday, January 4, 2021

The story behind ‘Oloture,’ Nigeria’s Netflix sex-trafficking drama

Clad soberly in a checkered knee-length dress, Tobore Ovuorie hardly seems as if she once walked the streets of Lagos in a revealing outfit and high heels.

A freelance reporter with a burning desire to uncover the truth about a sordid backstreet trade, Ovuorie dressed as streetwalker to infiltrate a prostitution ring.

She took on the dangerous mission after a friend left for Europe, became a sex worker and died, leaving Ovuorie shocked and beset with questions.

Today, Ovuorie's remarkable story has been turned into a hit Netflix film, Oloture, which has shone a bright light on one of Nigeria's darkest trades.

"I needed to do justice, to know the truth. I wanted to know the process, the back story about these ladies," the 39-year-old reporter told AFP.

By dressing up, she sought to gain the prostitutes' trust - the first step to introducing her to a "madam," a pimp.

After eight months working undercover in 2013, Tobore Ovuorie emerged with a terrifying account about the victims of sex trafficking.

Some were sent to Europe, where they were coerced into becoming sex workers. Others were forced to participate in orgies organized by local politicians. Some became victims of organ trafficking for ritual crimes.

She published her story in 2014 in the Nigerian newspaper Premium Times and Dutch investigative magazine, Zam Chronicles, inspiring a production company in Nigeria to adapt it for the screen.

Released in October on Netflix, the story has been widely watched and applauded in its home country, Africa's most populous market.

"Sometimes investigative journalists in search of the story become the story," director Kenneth Gyang told AFP.

But in this case, the reporter was also "the torch that led us into the lives" of victims, he said.

Disillusion

Sex trafficking is rife in Nigeria, in particular in southern Benin City, a recruiting ground for criminal gangs who smuggle women to Europe.

How many are trafficked is unknown but in Italy, authorities say that between 10,000 and 30,000 Nigerians are prostitutes.

Several thousand others are stuck in Libya or other African countries, often exploited by criminals who make them believe they will one day reach Europe.

In the film, a journalist named Oloture, playing the part of Ovuorie during her investigation, heads to neighboring Benin with a dozen other girls.

From there, their "madam" promises they will depart to Europe in exchange for money (up to $85,000) that they will have to repay once they arrive in Italy.

Very quickly, the journey turns sour.

Instead of heading to the country's border, their minibus stops in a gloomy training camp on the outskirts of Lagos.

There, the girls are roughed up and divided into two groups: "street" prostitutes and "special" prostitutes reserved for wealthier clients.

On screen, the most gripping character is Linda, a young uneducated woman from a poor rural background, who becomes friends with Oloture.

Linda "represents many of those young ladies and how they get in disillusion" said Ovuorie, who came across such a character during her investigation.

For the director, it is exciting that the film is a success in Nigeria.

"We have to see how to make this film available in remote places for young vulnerable women who might be susceptible to be trafficked to Europe," said Gyang.

Emotional toll

On social media, the movie - and its ending - have triggered passionate debate.

"For most of these ladies there is never any light at the end of the tunnel," said Gyang, "so why would you try to make a film that would end on a happy note?"

Ovuorie said that what she saw and experienced during her investigation still haunts her - she is trying to find the women she was meant to go to Europe with, and tell their stories.

Her work has inflicted a heavy emotional cost, she said.

"I'm a shadow of myself, I try to smile, to look bright, but most of the time it's been just me fighting to hold onto life."

AFP 

Related story: New Nollywood film shines a light on human trafficking in Nigeria

Video - Nigerian women trafficked to Europe for prostitution at 'crisis level'

Thursday, December 3, 2020

Nigerian 'baby factory' where men were hired to impregnate women before the newborns were sold is busted with ten victims rescued including four bearing children

A Nigerian 'baby factory' where men were hired to impregnate woman before their newborns were sold was raided by police on Tuesday, with ten victims rescued.

Police rescued four children and six woman - four of whom were pregnant - from the illegal maternity home, a spokesman said on Wednesday.

The operation was being carried out at a so-called 'baby factory' in the southwestern Ogun state by a woman already standing trial for human trafficking.

'Acting on a tip-off, our men stormed the illegal maternity home and rescued 10 people, including four kids and six women, four of whom are pregnant,' police spokesman Abimbola Oyeyemi told AFP news agency.

He said the women told police that the owner hired men to impregnate them and then sell the newborns for profit.

The 'factories' are usually small illegal facilities parading as private medical clinics that house pregnant women and offer their babies for sale.

In some cases, young women have been held against their will and raped before their babies are sold on the black market

Oyeyemi said two suspects, a physically-challenged man and the daughter of the owner of the clinic, were arrested in the raid.

'The operator of the centre is on the run but we are intensifying efforts to arrest her and bring her to justice,' he said.

Oyeyemi said the operator had been previously arrested for the same offence.

'She had been standing trial for human trafficking after her arrest early this year but she was on bail when she went back to her usual business.'

Police raids on illegal maternity units are relatively common in Nigeria, especially in the south.

Last year, nineteen pregnant women - aged between 15 and 28 - and four children were rescued from another suspected baby factory in Nigeria.

Investigators said at the time that the children were going to be trafficked and sold for £1,000 for a boy and £700 for a girl.

A majority of the women were tricked into leaving their home villages with promises of domestic work in Lagos before being forced into pregnancy, police said, while a few of the women joined the syndicate voluntarily believing they would be paid.

They never were, according to reports last year.

By Chris Jewers FOR MAILONLINE and AFP

Related stories: Baby factory raided in Lagos, Nigeria

Denmark bans adopting babies from Nigeria

Video - Baby trafficking syndicate arrested in Imo state

Another baby factory busted in Nigeria

16 pregnant women freed from baby factory in Nigeria

Survivors of Nigeria's 'baby factories' share their stories

Thursday, October 29, 2020

Netflix shines light on Nigerian sex trafficking



Set in the shady underworld of Lagos brothels, Nigerian thriller Òlòtūré gives viewers an inside look at the sex trafficking schemes that ensnare thousands of Nigerian women each year.

The film is fictional but aims for a realistic and gritty picture to raise awareness of what is a persistent and little-discussed problem, said 36-year-old director Kenneth Gyang.

For decades, scores of Nigerian women and girls have been lured to Europe with promises of work, then trapped in debt bondage and forced to sell sex.

The United Nations migration agency estimates that 80% of Nigerian women arriving in Italy - more than 11,000 in 2016 - are potential victims of sex trafficking.

“I know people are not always receptive to documentaries, so sometimes you have to put these things in fiction so that people will see it,” said Gyang, who won international acclaim for his first film, Confusion Na Wa, in 2013.

His thriller debuted on Netflix this month and quickly became the streaming service’s most-watched film in Nigeria, reaching the top-10 list in another 13 countries.

“For me it’s about people watching the film and then trying to push for policies that will protect these young women from getting trafficked,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

In the movie, a journalist goes undercover as a sex worker to expose human trafficking and quickly gets in over her head.

It is worlds away from the films that are usually popular in Nollywood, Nigeria’s massive film industry, which favours comedies and light-hearted tales about rich people, said Gyang.

“The producers were not sure how it was going to be received,” he said.

“When the film came out, it was #1 on Netflix in Nigeria and on social media, everybody was talking about it. People were angry. People were talking about the fact that they didn’t know this is what happens when people get trafficked.”

In one scene, sex workers undergo a religious ritual that binds them to their traffickers with black magic - a common practice that renders women too fearful to mount an escape.

Gyang said he sought support from NAPTIP, Nigeria’s anti-trafficking agency, to make sure he got the details right.

Part of his motivation, he said, was seeing Nigerian women on street corners when he travelled in Europe.

Foreign donors have poured money into anti-trafficking programmes in the traditional industry hotspot, Edo State, but experts say sex traffickers are now moving to other parts of Nigeria to avoid detection.

"I hope what will happen is that the right people in the right places will see the film, and then the relevant bodies will push for policies to try to help these young women," said Gyang. (Reporting by Nellie Peyton, editing by Lyndsay Griffiths; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers the lives of people around the world who struggle to live freely or fairly. Visit news.trust.org)

By Nellie Peyton

Reuters

Related stories:  Netflix Unveils Nigerian Original Series, Three Films 

Gang charged with sex trafficking girls from Nigeria arrested in Italy

Netflix involvement in Nollywood 

Video - Nigerian women trafficked to Europe for prostitution at 'crisis level'

Video - Nigerian short film Chuks premieres at Toronto International short Film Festival

Thursday, October 8, 2020

New Nollywood film shines a light on human trafficking in Nigeria



 

Dressed in a transparent and colorful blouse, a sex worker in Lagos, the commercial center of Nigeria jumps out the window of a room at a party to avoid having sex with a potential customer.
She is seen, heels in her hand, running away from the party and eventually getting into a bus heading back to a brothel, where she lives with other sex workers.


These scenes are from the Netflix original film, "Oloture," in which we later find out that the sex worker, also named Oloture, is a Nigerian journalist who is undercover to expose sex trafficking in the country.

Every year, tens of thousands of people are trafficked from Nigeria, particularly Edo State in the nation's south, which has become one of Africa's largest departure points for irregular migration.
The International Organization for Migration (IMO) estimates that 91% victims trafficked from Nigeria are women, and their traffickers have sexually exploited more than half of them.
 

Through "Oloture," the difficult realities of these women, particularly those who are sexually exploited, come to light. It shows how they are recruited and trafficked overseas for commercial gain.
Directed by award-winning Nigerian filmmaker, Kenneth Gyang, the film features Nollywood actors including Sharon Ooja, Omoni Oboli and Blossom Chukwujekwu.
 

Mo Abudu, executive producer of "Oloture," told CNN that the crime drama was inspired by the numerous cases of trafficking around the world and in Nigeria.


"There have been many reports around the world highlighting human trafficking and modern slavery. It has been in our faces. I dug and dug and did a bit more research, and when I came across the numbers and saw how much was made annually from human trafficking, I was totally shocked," she said.
Human trafficking is a $150 billion global industry. And two-thirds of this figure is generated from sexual exploitation, according to a 2014 report by the International Labor Organization.
Abudu -- who is also CEO of EbonyLife Films, which produced "Oloture" -- added that the film mirrored some real-life reports by journalists who had gone undercover to expose sex trafficking patterns in the country.


One of them, she said, was a 2014 report by journalist Tobore Ovuorie, in the Nigerian newspaper, Premium Times. 

"Upon research, we found that many journalists had gone undercover to report on human trafficking. But the Premium Times article did spark our interest as some of it plays out in the film," Abudu said.

Easy prey for traffickers

Ovuorie, whose report was credited in "Oloture," told CNN that women often get trafficked as a result of their need to make money abroad. Ovuorie said she met many women in the course of her reporting who wanted to get to Europe in hopes of better job opportunities that would earn them more money.

"People were motivated by greed, you know, the need to get rich. I spoke with the women I was supposed to be trafficked with, and many of them wanted better lives motivated by money. There was one girl who had never earned more than 50,000 naira (about $130) as salary since she graduated from university," she told CNN.

Most of the women were fleeing harsh economic conditions and poverty, making them easy prey for traffickers, Ovuorie said.


During Ovuorie's investigation, she said she posed as a sex worker on the streets of Lagos, looking to travel to Europe.

Her plan worked. She was eventually linked with a trafficker who promised to get her to Italy. In partnership with ZAM Chronicles and Premium Times, she documented her experience.

After a series of "humiliating trainings" and physical abuse, she said she was told she and other girls would receive a fake passport in preparation to be smuggled outside the country through the border in Benin in West Africa.
She escaped at the border.

Physical and sexual abuse   

Many women who are trafficked in Nigeria face sexual, physical and mental abuse, according to a 2019 report by Human Rights Watch.
 

The rights group interviewed many women who said they were trafficked within and across national borders under life-threatening conditions as they were starved, raped and extorted.
On some occasions, according to the report, they were forced into prostitution where they were made to have abortions and coerced to have sex with customers when they were sick, menstruating or pregnant.
 

"Oloture" portrays some of these harsh realities as the lead character (played by Ooja) suffers sexual violence and physical abuse, including being whipped by one of her traffickers.
It was important to depict the reality of sex trafficking so viewers can understand the experiences of women who are forced into the trade, Gyang, the director, told CNN.
 

"I wanted people to know that this is the reality of these ladies. People always want closure but life is not about a Hollywood ending; you can't always get a happy ending," he said.
While directing the film, Gyang visited places with sex workers to get a better idea of how they live and work, he said.
 

"I actually went to places where we have sex workers in Lagos with one of the producers of the film. We wanted to really capture their lives so that we would be able to show it realistically in the movie. We talked to them, and some of the rooms we used in the movie were actually used previously by sex workers," he explained.

'The most impactful movie we have ever done'


The film was shot in 21 days towards the end of 2018, he said. Post-production was covered in 2019, and it was released Friday on Netflix.


In just days, it has become the top watched movie in Nigeria and is among the top 10 watched movies in the world on Netflix. 

 
"It's huge for me as a filmmaker that people have access to the film from all over the world. I want many people as possible to see it and have conversations about sex trafficking," Gyang said. 


The film is doing well in countries like Switzerland, Brazil, and South Africa because it is authentic and "deals with the truth," Abudu said.


"EbonyLife has done seven movies. But this is the most impactful one we have ever done. And the most important," Abudu said.


The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), the law enforcement agency in charge of combating human trafficking in Nigeria, wants the film to be made available to people in rural communities who don't have access to Netflix.


"I haven't seen the movie, but if it is trying to portray the ills and dangers of trafficking, then it's fine since that is going to raise awareness," Julie Okah-Donli, the director-general of the agency said.
And while she is happy that "Oloture" is shining the light on human trafficking, she told CNN that women mostly targeted by traffickers may not get to watch it.


"The people watching it on Netflix all know what trafficking is. It needs to go to those girls in rural communities where traffickers go to bring them from. Those are the girls that the awareness should go to," Okah-Donli said. 


With more people partnering with NAPTIP and raising awareness of the dangers of trafficking, sex trafficking will be minimized in Nigeria, she said. 

By Aisha Salaudeen 

CNN

Related stories:  Netflix Unveils Nigerian Original Series, Three Films 

Gang charged with sex trafficking girls from Nigeria arrested in Italy

Netflix involvement in Nollywood 

Video - Nigerian women trafficked to Europe for prostitution at 'crisis level'

Video - Nigerian short film Chuks premieres at Toronto International short Film Festival

Tuesday, August 18, 2020

71 Nigerian girls crying for help in viral video in Lebanon arrive Abuja

Seventy-one young Nigerian girls trafficked to Lebanon and seen in a video that had gone viral where they were crying for help had been rescued and arrived at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, early Monday.

Mr Bitrus Samuel, the Head of NEMA Abuja Operation Office, disclosed this to Newsmen. He said that the girls were the second batch of the more than 150 Nigerian girls who were trafficked to Lebanon in search of greener pastures.

Early in the month, 94 victims that constituted the first batch were received at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos. Samuel said that the latest victims would be going from the airport to the hotel where the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) would profile their records. The agency would quarantine the girls as a precaution against coronavirus pandemic.

Also, the spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr Ferdinand Nwonye, said that the rescue came after video footage of the stranded Nigerians appealing to the Federal Government and well-meaning Nigerians to come to their aid went viral on the Internet. The spokesman said the ministry had several discussions with Mr Houssam Diab, the Ambassador of Lebanon to Nigeria before the Lebanese Government agreed to release the girls to the Federal Government.

He said that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Geoffrey Onyeama, was very sad when he saw the video footage. He had to summon the Lebanese Ambassador, and both leaders had a series of engagements that led to the release of the girls.

Nwonye said that following the discussions between the two leaders, the Lebanese community in Nigeria through the facilitation of the Nigerian mission in Beirut chartered a flight, paid the flight tickets for these girls to return to Nigeria. NAN reports that various government officials from NAPTIP, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Nigeria in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM) respectively were on ground at the airport to receive them. Also, Mr Akinloye Akinsola, the representative of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), said that some Nigerians employed as domestic workers in Lebanon had complained of maltreatment from their Lebanese employers.

He said that sequel to the complaints; the Lebanese Ambassador to Nigeria had suspended the issuance of working visas to Nigerians seeking to do domestic work in Lebanon. He said the suspension had become imperative so as to stem the tide of the maltreatment. Akinsola said that the commission had started the procedure for proper harmonisation in line with best practices relating to orderly migration. He said that the discussion was with the Ministry of Labour and Employment and the House of Representatives’ Chairman on the Diaspora, Mrs Tolulope Akande-Shodipe.

Vanguard

Related stories: Canada and Nigeria working to combat migrant smuggling, human trafficking and irregular migration

Canada and Nigeria working to combat migrant smuggling, human trafficking and irregular migration

Monday, July 27, 2020

80,000 Nigerians held as sex slaves abroad

Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Diaspora Affairs, Tolu Akande-Sadipe, has disclosed that about 80,000 Nigerian victims of trafficking were currently held as sex slaves and in forced labour across the world.

According to her, the practice is rife in Lebanon, Mali and across the Middle East. Akande-Sadipe, who blamed the Ministries of Foreign Affairs as well as Labour and Employment for the situation, said young Nigerian girls were subjected to modern-day slavery, sexual exploitation and organ harvesting, among others.

She also noted that the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on the pretext of diplomacy, was working towards the release of a Lebanese trafficker apprehended by the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, NAPTIP, who was complicit in the trafficking of 16 girls to Lebanon.

Her words: “Records show that the Lebanese was complicit in the trafficking of 16 girls, 10 of whom have been repatriated back to Nigeria, while the others remain stranded in Lebanon.

“He is currently in custody in Ilorin, Kwara State, awaiting trial for trafficking, but it appears that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, under the guise of diplomacy, is working for the release of the said trafficker without any regard for our citizens’ losses, their repatriation back home and compensation.”

Besides, Sadipe lamented increasing cases of abuse and dehumanisation of Nigerians abroad, especially in nations with a long history of cordial relationship with Nigeria. She also disclosed that there were some Nigerian students in Turkey, who wanted to return home but could not afford the cost of the flight, stressing that they were currently stuck in Turkey, experiencing untold hardship.

By Tordue Salem

Vanguard 

Related stories: Trafficked Nigerian women rescued from Lebanon

Survivors of Nigeria's 'baby factories' share their stories

'I had no choice': the desperate Nigerian women who sell their babies

Lebanon arrests suspect for putting Nigerian worker up 'for sale'