Combating the Menace of Transnational Human Trafficking in Nigeria: A Challenge to Public Policy.

Abstract

Savage neo-slave trade appears a befitting name for the current trafficking in persons which had dehumanized the homo-sapien. This is more savagery than its progeny, in which slaves were chained on their legs and necks and bound together in a convoy through Trans-Atlantic route to the white-man\'s country. The new slave trade the trans-National human trafficking, abuses the human element in its sacred part, the soul of womanhood. It is more devastating than the physical torture that was attendant to the trans-Atlantic route between 1445 and 1870. Paradoxically, the new phenomenon has its origin in Africa as with the first, with Nigeria, the old “slave coast”, again playing the arrow-head. This research explores the general characteristics of the illegal trade and identifies major predisposing factors as bad governance, with its ancillary by-products of unemployment, poverty and pervasive corruption in political and bureaucratic leadership. There is deception as well as ignorance on the part of the victims. The trade thrives in African cultural milieu which challenges public policy. Three African regional blocks, are found to be participants or facilitators in the trade, namely: Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) with Nigeria as a principal actor and a transit route; the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) and the North African Zones with Morocco as serving the “middle passage”. Combating policy in this study recommends a two-track policy model.

International Journal of Policy and Development Studies Vol. 3 2007: pp. 1-15