Human trafficking in Nigeria

A NAPTIP staff revealed the case of a staff who was at the bother with other teams members apprehended a human trafficking cartel with some Victims, unfortunately the traffickers was able to buy his ways out by bribing the officials but these staff was apparently angered that he was not given a fear deal of the business and decides not to report the cases at the region but to the regional headquarters because he is aware of the illegality of his own region. Similarly Fatima also informs me that the NPF is so corrupt that they even help to maintained and regulate the Victims stay in the Trafficking cycle bondage. She went further to give a case where a traffickers had paid some Police officer to arrest the family member of a victims because the victims has been rescued undergoing a rehabilitation program with Fatima NGO in most cases the Victim have to return to the madam because of the fear that her parent may suffer some illness due to the arrest or treat of being killed in the Police Custody.

Another major finding is that traffickers beat the immigration and anti human trafficker unit by obtaining student visa which is mostly gotten in connivance with the school authority, the school gives invitation letter after a trafficker has paid an official $500, the university get invitation letter request from the FMS with this the students get the Russian visa at ease, this point has been explained in the earlier chapter.

There is strong allegation on the activities of some NGO's in Nigeria who has failed the main purpose for the funds they received from the donors. Dion Osagie, the founder of the God-sent Foundation has also alleged the NGO's in Nigeria as being fraudulent and dubious. He went further to say 70% these NGOs do not meet the international standard for squandering $200 million yearly and failing to use it for what it is meant for (Guardian, May 10). Similarly, an Italian prosecutor, Carmelo Zuccaro has alleged that NGOs are frustrating the investigations of traffickers because most of them connive with traffickers (Frontex, 2017).

Superstitions and belief in the Religion

The NGOs and relevant authorities must find a better explanation to set people free from every form of Meta physical belief, Superstition and the norms and traditions of the power accrued “Ayalala “ this is call ojuju a form of African Traditional religions. The victims often become so secretive and loyal to their Madam due to the Oath sworn at the shrine in which they will prefer to lie to any rescuer or anti trafficking bodies even when there are traces that a victim is under the bondage and needs helps.

Family ties

Family ties have been well capitalized upon by the trafficker in the previous chapter I have discuss how the victims are recruited, that they were recruited in most cases a relative or a neighbor or family friends or boyfriends. The major reason for this engagement is to escape from poverty and the enticements has been to get exposure and enjoy amenities absence in their immediate environment.

The issues of Family ties have been a major problem mitigating the effort to combat human trafficking. When victims decide to pull out of the illicit deal the family members upon receiving a call from the madam, the exploiter or the Madam's family members or contact person in Nigeria parent will go as far as encouraging their daughter to pay up the bills. It is surprising that even when this victims try to convince their parent to demonstrate the level of Maltreatment they go through under the so call sex slavery , the only panacea given by parent are all words of encouragement, endurance and plead with the victims to remain in the cycles.

Parent seems not to understand the severity and the ordeal there wards actually go through of passes through.

I followed a case of a victims that escape her madam to seek refuge in a shelter after staying some days the madam began to mount pressure on the parent of the victims that there child have decided to seek refuge at a shelter by escaping to complete her financial due.it so embarrassing that the father of the victims began to makes several phone call to the founder of the NGO up to the extent of petitioning the embassy official via text messages and call for keeping their daughter away from her normal business. In this case the father is the custodian of the illicit trade, the lady had to run out from the shelter to continue her sex business. The father argue further that the entire family had a meeting and agree that the victims should remain in Sex since there is no other job for her to engage back home. Apparently, the victim absconded to another city to continuing her business, just few month back she was arrested and taken to the deportation camp. Similarly another victim interviewed who was trafficked into Russia in 2014 revealed to me that her brother are into trafficking cycles and followed her for the oath taking she lamented that she decided to embark on this journey to support are ailing and late father who had solely raised the five children when her mother left them him. At the time of her interview she had completing her 45,000 dollar deal with her madam and saved over the sum of 2.3 million naira to build a house in Nigeria under the watch of her brother. She was only informed by the brother that he had squandered the money and nothing is left for her. She told me that she might be committing a murder upon reaching home which I pleaded with her to maintain peace. To worsen the situation the bother and other family member had told her never to come back home. She was vehemently angry by the encouragement from family member for her to remain in the sex slavery circle. The next time I had a Skype discussion with her repatriated colleague, she informed me that the said victim has crossed to Europe with via the Mediterranean Sea. Apparently, to augment for the wasted time spent in Russia. The motives why victims go desire to return back from Russia to Europe is another thing to be investigated.

In summary, the family tie has been a major hiccup to investigate and prosecute traffickers says a NAPTIP official, whenever the victims are asked if they would like to see their madams or exploiters punished, in most cases they do not want it to go that way, their statement has always been that “I leave her to God” (Danya, 2017).

Prosecution /Judicial delay

Traffickers in the Nigerian-Moscow sex circle have been taking undue advantage of the fact that the time taken to persecute a trafficker might take up to 2 years as enunciated in the previous chapter of this research. The police are more comfortable to charge the traffickers as law breakers, but the victims get the lion share of the punishments for breaking the Russian immigration laws for not having a valid visa. In such a case the legal decisions could be reached in few days either taking to the deportation camp or repatriated. Meanwhile, this system does not permit proper investigation that could have proved to the government about the evil act perpetrated by these human traffickers. In anyways, the trafficker remains in the Russian territory since he could only be charged with prostitution which does not exceed 2,000 rubles. Corroborating this view from the Nigerian side, a NAPTIP official claims that judicial delay has been a major challenge of the organization because cases are adjourned severally and such a process is not good for investigations of pending cases, 197 cases have been received in the first quarter of this year only. He also stated that there are plans to set up an independent judicial panel for the organization to tackle these challenges.

Political will

The human-trafficker are also aware that Nigeria and the Russian government does not have any Bilateral relations, the absences of this agreement for both countries could have a negative impact from the sex trade on the Russian territory particularly with the high possibility of disease outbreak as a result of STI's escapade of commercial sex workers.

According to Mr. Kenny, five (5) girls have died in the first quarter of this year 2017 as a result of STI's such as HIV/AIDS, Cancers, and Tuberculosis etc. A very good case is about a late sex worker diagnosed with tuberculosis and lived with 8 other sex workers in the same room, her fellow sex workers still go out on a daily basis to engage in the sex trade, leaving behind a lady with tuberculosis at home for several months. Obviously one or two might have contacted the disease since it is a communicable diseases, one must consider the number of infected people going by the number of clients they service on daily basis.

It is also not worthy that the government would have done better if they could have provided shelter for these victims to investigate and control the spread of diseases.

Furthermore, the Russian government's definition and policy of human trafficking actually contradict that of the globally accepted definition and that of the Nigerian government. Apparently, the gap is manipulated and capitalized by these traffickers.

Also, this political will is not only hampering the Nigerian government agency NAPTIP which have been rated to be one of the best agencies working on the issues of human-trafficking in the world. It has also affected the NGO's from working effectively and efficiently because the policies are well strictly coordinated in Russia. Again the absence of the political will have increase the tendency that when a victims is attack by client or by Madams when they approach the relevant authorities for help in most cases help are not given because what they requested firstly is documents without which the victims cannot been attended to either at the police station or for medical health facilities. Recall that in the previous chapter that sex slavery was discussed, at the arrival of a Victim in Moscow the first thing done to the victim is being stripped off the travelling document or international passport, the is the major indication that a person has become a victim of trafficking.

Unprofessionalism of anti-human trafficking bodies

One must understands that most Russians are not experience on the human trafficking issue and then in most cases the security agencies needs an approval to embark on such a mission to apprehend or for stall human trafficking plots.

During a round table discussion with experts, students and researches on the issues of human trafficking in Moscow, Olga had claimed that several Russians girls are also trafficked out of the country to the Middle East, US, UK and other countries as dancers but in reality as sex workers.

Mr. Kenny gave a narrative of a case that happened in the previous month when a victim was advertised on Face book to be sold to another would-be madam, the message was intercepted and was given to the Russian police force to work upon. Low and behold it took the Russian police a week to get approval to stop and arrest the perpetrators unfortunately the deal has been sealed and perfected by the traffickers, another cases happen few week back when a lady was throw form the second floor by her exploiters this time a male and a fellow Nigerian was the exploiter. The case of the girl was reported to the police about the incident and the police handed her over to the guys who eventually did her this wrong. This time after approaching the police, she was told that everything is fine and okay since she is not dead, the case was closed. Obviously not in all cases are the cases of corruption the bone of contention but sometimes the police does not know what to do about cases of human trafficking rather the police would prefer to kill the case. I need also to state that the inability to professional distinguish pictures of girls on the international passport is also problem.

Similarly, the NAPTIP has been accused of unprofessionalism by taking victims to the houses of the exploiter in an attempt to make an arrest, this is not only dangerous, it is embarrassing and disgraceful this has made most of the victims kept mute, because the family in question will be seen as a betrayal and the stigma could last long since we have established in the previous discussion that a close family relatives or neighbor is always involved. This unprofessional practice does not match with the international principles and has caused some dichotomy between NAPTIP and some NGO's. Similarly, the facilities where the victims are kept have been another bone of contention between the relevant bodies. The amenities and conditions of repatriated victims under the watch of NAPTIP have been criticized by the NGO.

The Sex Slaves Operations

The pattern of carrying out the sex trade operation from Nigerian and Russia is quite different from that of the Italian sides because it is quite difficult to identify the victims. I will discuss the mode of operations under three headings of transportation, housing and business place.

As for the transportation, I already established the fact that the first step to slavery is the stripping off of victim's passport either by seizure, sales or misplaced as most victims would claim whilst living in this document-check country, victims escapes the security agent when attending functions and going for the sex business by using taxi which is way safer than the metro where victim might be apprehended.

The housing scheme serves as a protective abode and where the sex escape takes place in Russia, victims are kept indoor throughout from the sight of external security officials, although this system is always in connivance with the police officials in charge of the neighborhood. A victim explained that they need not to fear when they are at home because information regarding external checks is gotten ahead of any visitation and in most cases when such flats are searched, no one would be found and that flat might no longer be useful for the sex business the most common phrase made by the girls in this situation is “the house don burst” meaning the flat has been busted.

In the outdoor business, particularly at the clubs, the sex workers are protected as they come in with the Taxi and leaves by the same means of transport. I interviewed two of the pimps at the clubs and they were optimistic that the club is so secured for the ladies because they are guided by the hotel securities as well as the Nigerian pimps who gives a tag to the customers who enters into the club. I witnessed a situation where a girl was dragged by her supposed boyfriend but her madam objected as the victim was mute, it became a tussle between the lady and the supposed madam who is almost of the same age of the victim. After dragging the lady on the floor for a while the securities calmed the situation and the guy was made to apologize to the supposed madam.

5.8 Discussion

Trust, Distrust, Loyalty and Greed

The best way to describe the activities of the traffickers from Nigeria to Russia is to understand the concept of trust , distrust and loyalty existing between the victim, trafficker and anti-human traffickers. I argue that the victim must be understood and studied critically, a template of policy would not be effective as in the case of traffickers, because the traffickers are aware of the policies but they understand the weaknesses, devise alternative methods and that all they require is to get maximum loyalty from the victim, and bribe other relevant anti-trafficking bodies, this relationship between this two actors, affects the trust the victims have when the anti-trafficking unit come on a rescue mission. Moreover, between the anti-trafficking bodies, be it the NGOs, IGOs, and Governmental bodies, there exist a gap of trust. Since the NGOs are in different countries, it was common during my interview with the some NGOs staff to know that they have little trust for other NGOs; meanwhile the security agencies do not trust one another. With the recent discovery of the Italian prosecutor Carmelo Zuccaro on the connivance of NGOSs with human traffickers, it will dwindle the relationship and corporation between foreign NGOs and donors since trust which is the key ingredient is missing in this case. The implication of this is that NGOs who should do the very good job will be affected by the withdrawal of funds and support from donors. Therefore, the sex slave would be unintentionally encouraged and victims will be kept continually in bondage.

Furthermore, the policies are only drawn by politicians who sees human trafficking as another form of international politics, thereby conceptualizing an unclear national definition of human trafficking, moreover, most of them are not professional in the field within the context of the country, and these policies guides the activities of the anti-human trafficking crusaders who in reality have close dealings with the victims.

I also argue that policies should never be static because the method of trafficking is never static. Since religious belief has a greater influence on moderating the sex slavery, it should also be considered as a yardstick to solve the problems. This could be done by testimonies of those who had escaped the sex slavery circle still living. Fatimah, was a victim who is now living over 20 years, in actual fact, one would believe that the policies in Italy will grant the victims a safe zone because over their victims could get documents and begin to live a normal life if they decided to pull out of that system but this is not the case as victims still remains loyal to the exploiters and have a strong belief that the repercussion of violating the agreements made before Ayelala is so efficacious.

The absence of a formal synergy between the NGOs working on human trafficking in Russian and Nigeria will continue to widen the gap, this is because, a proper follow-up is adequately missing in this direction and this has been a major problem. Humanitarian services should not end at the stage of financing, there is need to regularly do an evaluation of the effort committed to assisting victims, to know the weakness and strength of the organization. In reality, the helps coming from the Anti-Human trafficking bodies in Moscow are well commendable but these efforts will mean little sense if the home country don not find a lasting solution to the problem. I also want to support what Mr. Kenny concluded on that the NGOs are only dressing the wounds, the wound are not being cured.

Implication

The following will be the implications if the relevant bodies do not make quick efforts to control this heinous act.

There would be widespread of sexually transmitted diseases, this would mean that Nigerian coming into Russians would be thoroughly checked and this might lead to negative relationship between both countries.

Recommendation

There are no best policies to society problem, especially on human trafficking that has become one of the most lucrative jobs in the world, but I will recommend the following:

References

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Appendix

Interview Questions with Victims

1. What is your name?

2. Where are you from?

3. Very briefly, what is your academic?

4. Number of your family?

5. Who introduced you to this business?

6. Did you ever do it?

7. Were you aware of the business?

8. Did you do the oath, where and how?

9. How did you get your documents?

10. What type of visa did you get?

11. Did you do an interview at the Russian embassy?

12. Were you accompanied to the airport?

13. How much did you agree to pay?

14. When did you arrive here?

15. How much have you paid?

16. What type of sex business do you do?

17. What's experience about the business?

18. Were you ever pregnant?

19. Were ever raped?

20. What is your madams name?

21. Why do you want to go home?

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