‘Edo, hub of human trafficking in Nigeria’

From The PUNCH
By Akin Oyedele, Benin

Friday, August 05, 2005—The Head, Anti-Human Traffic Unit, Edo State Police Command, Mrs. Adesola Oyeleye, has described the state as the hub of human trafficking in the country, where parents act as facilitators for the illicit trade.

Oyeleye, a Superintendent of Police, said this on Wednesday as a guest speaker at a workshop organised by the United Nations Children Emergency Fund and the Benin zone of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons and Other Related Matters.

She said the complicity of the parents in the booming trade had been a major setback for the law enforcement agents in the effort to track down the brains behind the scourge.

Recognised as major beneficiaries from the proceeds of trafficking, the police officer said parents saw the police and the NAPTIP as enemies who constituted stumbling blocks to their means of livelihood.

Oyeleye added, “The parents gaining from the trade are not willing to give up. They see it as a legitimate income earner and a lucrative business, which is enhancing their living standards.”

On several occasions, she said parents concealed information from them in the course of investigation, while “some are today said to still be preparing their children for human trafficking.

With the benefit of hindsight, the police officer said there was a distinction between trafficking and prostitution, clarifying that the former was an all embracing definition of illegal trading involving human beings.

She explained that victims of human trafficking had been known to be recruited into prostitution, forced labour and domestic helps within (internal trafficking) and outside the country.

She added that some deportees were known to have exhibited wild characters in their desperate bid to go back, especially when they saw the wealth and materials their other successful colleagues had amassed.