Return to News Section

Millions of Children Become Slaves in Nigeria

According to the BBC, "trafficking in human beings" is a phrase guaranteed to cause a sharp intake of breath among listeners from the liberal and affluent and concerned West.

The view of trafficking in Nigeria is somewhat different. In fact, it is seen as an everyday part of West African life. It starts with the promise of a better life. The parents are taken in. The children are persuaded. When they leave home they do so willingly, with some excitement, not trepidation.

The trafficker has promised a good job, schooling, a regular income. But that is not how it works out.

Unicef estimates that human trafficking is more lucrative than any other trade in West Africa except guns and drugs. The streets of Nigeria are teeming with trafficked children. Of the hundreds of thousands of street kids living rough in Nigeria's oil rich cities, perhaps 40% have been bought and sold at some time.

The girls most frequently sold into domestic service, or prostitution, the boys into labour in plantations, or to hawk fruit and vegetables for 12-hours a day in an open air market. Some work as washers of feet. In Nigeria children enter the labour market almost as soon as they can lift and carry.

Unicef believes there are 15 million children working in exploitative labour in Nigeria. It is a 21st century slave trade.

Return to News Section