By MARGARET UKPABIO
Human trafficking or trafficking in persons is an organised crime and a modern day form of slavery.
According to United International Antisubmarine Warfare, UNITAS, human trafficking is the exploitation of another person for labour, domestic servitude, or commercial sexual activity by force, fraud, or coercion or slavery.
This means that it is the act of enslaving or exploiting unwilling other people.
There are many forms of exploitation with statistics showing approximately eighty percent of human trafficking today to involve sexual exploitation, while nineteen percent involves labour exploitation.
Some signs that a teen might be involved in human trafficking include not coming home at night, new tattoos, excessive crying, depression, exhaustion, secrecy, having older significant others, having many unknown adults on social media, sexually transmitted disease, STDs, or no longer engaging in regular social behaviours among many others.
Sad to say, this act of slavery has existed for hundreds of years and relentlessly still exists till today. This is why there is the need to intensify awareness to stop human trafficking in the country.
Unfortunately, experts have said that Nigeria is one of the nations occupying a central position as an originating state, transit and destination for victims of trafficking.
Also, experts reveal that the two major techniques used by traffickers to get their victims are deception and force, which have put Nigeria’s image in the black book of global systems.
Sadly, human trafficking has continued to thrive in the country because of the involvement of who should not.
Moreover, the risk of human trafficking in Nigerian states have taken a remarkable dimension in the last two decades because of factors like; unemployment, poverty, economic recession, conflicts, globalization, some weak legal system, poor legislation and political will among many others.
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Fighting human trafficking in Nigeria requires more efforts to create public awareness of the crime, organize counseling, rehabilitation and re-integration of programs for victims.
Presently, experts say there are approximately twenty to forty million slaves in the world. Even though men are trafficked and exploited for labour, experts have confirmed that trafficking affects women more, because of sex exploitation for profit making.
Fortunately, the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries encountered the benefits of the movement against human trafficking.
In 2000, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act addressed modern day slavery becoming the first federal law to do so.
In 2007, the United States Senate ratified the resolution establishing every January 11th as National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. The reason the National Human Trafficking Awareness Day is important is because it helps to create more awareness on the signs of human trafficking, as knowing these signs can save lives.
In 2010, President Obama dedicated the entire month of January to awareness and prevention of human trafficking, and today, there are over fifty established organisations that globally combat this illegal practice.
The 2022 theme for National Human Trafficking Awareness Day is ‘Meaning, History, Celebration’.
On this day, awareness of the ongoing problem of human trafficking is heightened, having gained broad popular support since its inauguration.
In observing national human trafficking awareness day, the United Nations wants everyone to donate to Anti-Slavery Organisations, volunteer to end human trafficking, and foster education on human trafficking.
It is therefore recommended that government at all levels in Nigeria, organisations, religious leaders and institutions ensure they address the issue of massive unemployment and poverty in the country, as well as create enabling environment for entrepreneurship for citizens.
Also, since human trafficking is a global problem and anyone can be affected, the national laws, international conventions and protocols that have legal grounds to curb trafficking must be implemented and strengthened.
Nigeria’s security agencies, Embassies, airline officials and human trafficke
The awful injustice of human trafficking can affect people of any race and background, and on this day everyone is being called upon to fight human trafficking wherever it is found and increase awareness on a daily basis.
