Nigeria Among World's Highest In Human Trafficking, says UN

Daily Independence, Monday, 22 December, 2008
By Francis Onoiribholo, Snr Correspondent, Benin City, Nigeria

Nigeria’s Powerful First Lady Mrs. Turai Yar’Adua

Nigeria has been named by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) as among the eight countries considered the highest in human trafficking in the world.

National Project Officer of UNODC, Ms. Amina Abdulrahman, made the comment in an address presented on behalf of the Country Representative of the body, Mrs. Dagmar Thomas, at the launch of the second phase of the UNODC/UNICRI-assisted project entitled: "Preventing and Combating Trafficking of Minors and Young Women from Nigeria to Italy," in Benin over the weekend.

Abdulrahman mentioned Thailand, China, Albania, Bulgaria, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine, as the other seven countries tagged by a recent UNODC report as Nigeria's counterparts in the despicable record of most trafficked persons in the world.

She also said the most common destinations of most trafficked persons were Italy, Thailand, Japan, Israel, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Turkey and the United States.

She stated further that 2.5 million people were being "recruited, entrapped, transported, and exploited" in the heinous process of trafficking in persons across the world "at any given time."

According to her, of the 36 states in Nigeria, Edo remained one of the most endemic states from where young girls were being trafficked into prostitution in Italy.

Abdulrahman said most children and women trafficked from the rural communities in the country to the urban areas and outside the country were cruelly exploited as domestic helps and objects of sex who end up in most cases as criminals.

Describing the scourge as "a modern form of slavery and the worst form of human rights violations in the twenty first century," she demanded that the modern-day trade in human beings should be combated forcefully.

Police nabs child trafficker with 245 kids at Kontagora, Niger State

Daily Independence, Saturday, 20 December, 2008
By Chinwendu Nnadozie, Reporter, Minna, Nigeria

The Police in Niger State on Friday intercepted about 250 kids loaded in a trailer along Kontagora road, a boarder town of Niger and Kebbi States said to have been taken from their parents at Sokoto and Zamfara states.

The trailer with registration number Kano : XB 241 FGE, said to be Minna, Niger State-bound was intercepted when the police discovered the content to be, jam-packed kids, all boys and ages between six to 10 was nabbed by the Niger State police in the early hours of the day, at about 3 a.m. on Friday.

The state police commissioner, Paul Iseghohi, who confirmed the interception of the trailer conveying the kids to Niger State, said the kids were in the custody of one Mallam Awaisu Abubakar at the time it was intercepted.

Mallam Awaisu he said had been arrested while investigation into the matter is ongoing at the police headquarters.

Why we repatriated the 245 Nigerian kids – Niger Gov

The Punch, Monday, 22 Dec 2008
By Francis Falola, Minna

The Niger State Government has justified the decision to repatriate the 245 Nigerien kids intercepted on Kontagora Road, a border town to Niger Republic and Kebbi states under the custody of one Mallam Awaisu Abubakar.

The kids were intercepted by the police around 3am on Friday in a trailer with registration number; XB 241 FGE.

There, the Abubakar who claimed he had brought the kids from Zamfara and Sokoto states, said the kids were brought to engage in Islamic education in the state, adding that he had been bringing such kids in the past 20 years.

But the state government urgently made arrangements and ensured the repatriation of the kids, whose ages ranged from six to 10 to their various parents.

The Permanent Secretary, Niger State Ministry of Poverty Eradication and Value Re-orientation, Alhaji Hamildu Kuta, while speaking with journalists in Minna, on Sunday, justified the decision of government to return these kids.

According to him, from whatever angle one viewed it, the motive for bringing those children was suspicious.

“Sokoto or Zamfara is not less an Islamic state as Niger and there is no reason somebody will claim that he is bringing such children from those places here for Quranic education.”

He said, “Again, the way in which those children were being transported is inhuman and unjust.”

He expressed surprise that the claim earlier made by Abubakar was found to be false.

He said the government eventually discovered that those kids were being brought from Niger Republic and not from Sokoto and Zamfara states as Abubakar had claimed.

He restated the need for adequate security measures to be put in place in the nation’s borders to prevent such activities in future.

President Umaru Yar’Adua (middle)