Assessing the impacts of Trafficking in Women and Children and Sex Slavery on National Development in Nigeria

Abstract

Human trafficking takes a perilous trek of victims from the interior settlements in Nigeria where they were transported into Niger, Algeria or Libya before crossing the Sahara Desert and the sea to Europe. In the process, several got killed while some survivors often ended up in the custodies of transnational sex slave mercenaries. This predicament has far-reaching implications for national growth. Slave labour and sexual exploitation of women and children have badly violated their human rights. Such inhumane types of labour have hampered the growth and development of Nigerian children and women, as well as their contribution to national progress. Given this, the purpose of this research paper is to assess human trafficking and the obstacles it posed to national development. The main thrust of the paper is to detail the impacts of trafficking in women on national development in Nigeria. Knowing that human trafficking is a criminal offence in Nigeria, this paper explored the psychological consequence of trafficking in persons for individual victims of it and the socio-economic consequences it poses for the Nigerian State, especially brain drain or loss of human and material resources. The paper adopted a descriptive and analytical methods using data from secondary sources to demonstrate the understanding of the meaning of trafficking in women and its consequences for national development in Nigeria. The sources of data included legislation on human trafficking in Nigeria, the Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Enforcement and Administration Act, originally passed in 2003 and amended in 2005 and 2015; reports from anti-trafficking agencies like the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Person (NAPTIP), Women Trafficking and Child Labour Eradication Foundation and the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission. Other sources of data included journal articles, relevant texts and periodicals. The paper noted that current legal and institutional frameworks have slowed down the spate of human trafficking and sex slavery locally in Nigeria but have not significantly halted trans-national trafficking of women and children including sex labour. The paper emphasised the need to strengthen the existing institutional framework to include prosecutorial powers such that can boast deterrence from origin communities and severely punish offenders of trafficking in women and children and sex slavery which often include family members or their contacts.