CURBING THE MENACE OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN NIGERIAN COMMUNITIES

This paper examined the menace of human trafficking in the Nigerian Communities with emphasis on two local Government areas, one in Ekiti and one in Oyo State. Three research questions and three hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The study was a descriptive survey research design and the population consisted of all the wards in the two chosen local government areas in Ekiti and Oyo States. Stratified random sampling technique was used to collect data rated on a four point Likert scale and on the items related to the study. The instrument was tested for reliability using Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation coefficient which yielded an index of 0.79 which was adjudged good enough for measuring the consistency of the items. Mean and Standard Deviation were used to answer the research questions while t-test was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The study revealed that people both, young,men and women are victims of human trafficking, it also revealed that poverty, greed and materialism are the main causes for falling victim of human trafficking. It was also found that traffickers use violence, threat, deception and debt bondage to trap victims. It was then recommended that community education should be embarked upon to make people aware of the menace of human trafficking, job opportunities should be created for the Nigerian youth and laws should be effectively enforced on human traffickers while rehabilitaive services should be adequately provided for the victims..


Introduction
Human trafficking has been viewed from various perspectives by various groups, persons and organizations. It is described as being a large and growing practice not only in Nigeria but the world over. Trafficking of humans involves moving, men, women and even children from place to place for various degrading and dehumanizing purposes such as forced labour and prostitution. It is the trade of humans in most communities for the purpose of sexual slavery, forced labour or commercial sexual exploitation for the traffickers or others (www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human traffic). Human trafficking from what angle it is viewed is a violation of human rights. Human trafficking is a form of modern slavery where people make huge profit from the control and exploitation of others and possibly subjecting them to exploitation and dehumanizing conditions. Olateru-Olagbegi (2013) is of the opinion that attempts at defining trafficking in persons have generated many contentions, debates and a host of definitions have been generated. The definition contained in the United Nations protocol to prevail suppress and punish Trafficking in persons especially women and children was adopted by Olateru-Olagbegi.
"Trafficking in persons" shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons by means of threat, or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud or deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payment of benefit to achieving the consent of a person having control over another person for the purpose of exploitation" (Olateru-Olagbegi 2013).
Exploitation from Olateru-Olagbegi shall include at a minimum the exploitation of the prostitution of other or other forms of sexual exploitation forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.
Human trafficking is thus exploitation at the highest level and it is highly debating and dehumanizing. It could be referred to as illicit trade. This view of Olateru-Olagbegi can be summed up by the views of Gbadamosi( 2015); that " prostitution and the accompanying evil of trafficking for the purposes of prostitution are incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person and endanger the welfare of the individual, the family and the community". This view clearly shows that human trafficking brings shame not only to the victim but to the family, community and the nation at large and this is why every effort must be put in place towards eradicating human trafficking in the Nigerian society.
In a similar document in "Solutions to Human Trafficking", human trafficking is described as recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons by the means of threat or the use of force or other forms of coercion of abduction fraud or deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person for the purposes of exploitation. (Solutions to Human Trafficking 2015). The above clearly shows that vulnerable people like the poor, homeless, women and children are prone to being trafficked and they are usually subjected to dehumanizing treatment by the rich who are usually described as the exploiters.
Trafficking thus can be seen as a complex issue and an economic problem as the vast majority of people seeking to escape poverty are hired into trafficking or efforts are made to lure them to give up their children for trafficking by the false promise of economic gains. Trafficking also translates into various health problems because victims are subjected to various health hazards through prostitution from where they can contact various deadly diseases like HIV/AIDs and through forced labour where hazrads and deaths are recorded.
The role of women in nation building should be very much recognised as they are the most vital instrument for national development. It is however saddening to note that women face indescribable violation of human rights such as gang rape, sexual slavery and fortune (Ander 2003 &Dijc 2014).Women who are supposed to raise children for a virile society are trapped in trafficking because of their vulnerability.
Human trafficking is now a worldwide issue. The United States government cites 170 countries where human trafficking is taking place. It has been described as the fasted growing criminal industry in the world with the total annual revenue estimated to be between $30 billion and $40 billion. The Polaris Project also gave key statistics on human trafficking using the International Labour Organization; that there are 20.9 victims of human trafficking globally: (1) Children under age 18 induced into commercial sex.
(2) Adults aged 18 or over induced into commercial sex through force, fraud or coercion.
(3) Runaway and homeless youth, victims of domestic violence, sexual assaults or conflict, and socially discriminated against individuals. All these groups are usually targeted by traffickers. Human trafficking therefore spans all demography.
All these groups of victims are from all over the world, Nigeria inclusive especially Benin City in Nigeria. The city is the main player with networks and infrastructure built around trade in people. So many cases of trafficking abound on the pages of newspapers in Nigeria.
There are myriads causes of human trafficking and with various methods of luring victims. It should be noted that the patrons of human trafficking are usually middle income earners who use their income to finance the illicit trade. Some of the causes leading to trafficking in Nigeria are highlighted in the document; {Poverty: the driving force of Nigerians Prostitute (naija.com). Such include: -Groggy and harsh economy -Advent of social media -School dropouts and children hawkers Olateru-Olagbegi (2013) also gave the following as some of the root factors of human trafficking. That trafficking is attributed to poverty and its attendant consequences.
-Devaluation of local currency which made private earnings in foreign exchange very attractive which boils down to economic desperation. Other causes of human trafficking include as stated by "Invisible Traffic" include: Poverty, Debt, Addiction, Political instability and Natural disasters and excessive demand. Every view above is united on the causes of human trafficking; chief of which is poverty, unemployment, economic desperation and disadvantage and lack of sustainable income. All these are preyed on by recruiters and traffickers.
Various methods are also used in the process of recruitment to ensure perfection and successful recruitment of victims. Olateru-Olagbegi describing the process and methods of recruitment states; "Most victims of trafficking are deceived, coerced or through deceit cajoled to leave their homes and usual place of residence with the traffickers or agents, all with the hope of accessing better opportunities for educational or economic empowerment".
Other methods are proposing fake papers for them and making them aware that they would need to pay off the cost of their transportation when things get better for them in their destination country.
-Making victims to take part in rituals to enforce obedience on them - Making victims and their parents to swear in local shrine with the belief that such would place a curse of sudden death on them (naija.com) A Nigerian lawyer commenting on this cases and methods of trafficking lamented the situation and condemned the fact that young Nigerian girls were caught in these traps because they have no one to speak for them. He reiterated the fact that, "these girls being humiliated lack the ability to cry out. They are in slavery and bondage. Such victims from Nigeria are sold into various countries such as Malaysia, Russia, UAE, China and even African countries for the purpose of forced labour, domestic servitude and sexual exploitation (UNO, 2005).
The conclusion that can be drawn from the above is that human trafficking is a modern day slavery engaged in for the purpose of exploitation of the victims. It is a dastardly act which is aided by technology, communication and transportation as well as high labour demand for cheap labour. It is a well organized crime where victims are deceived and moved locally and across international borders for economic gains (Hassan 2012).
It is against this background that the researcher embarked on this study to examine the causes, methods and possible ways of curbing the menace of human trafficking in Nigerian communities.

Statement of the Problem
Nigeria like most developing nations of the world is faced with multitude of problems which include unemployment, underemployment, insecurity and poverty among others. These situations pose great threat to human existence in Nigeria to the extent that people are desperate to seek a way out of these ugly situations. These problems could be traced to lack of proper education in the Nigerian communities as to the rights of people especially the right to voice out when there is need to speak out, another observation that could account for this, could be the type of education being given to the Nigerian youths. It is the type of education that does not equip youth with needed skills for survival in the face of unemployment. In the light of the above, this paper intends to examine the causes of human trafficking and results of it on the victims and communities and also make possible recommendations on curbing the menace.

Purpose of the Study
The study specifically sought to (1) Examine the causes of human trafficking (2) Identify methods used in human trafficking (3) To investigate the possible measures to put in place to curb the menace

Research Questions
(1) What are the causes of human trafficking in Nigerian communities?
(2) What are the various forms and methods used in human trafficking?
What are the possible measures to be employed to curb the menace of human trafficking?

Hypotheses
1. There is no significant difference between the mean ratings of male and female opinions on the causes of human trafficking.

2.
There is no significant difference between the mean ratings of male and female respondents on the various forms and methods used in human trafficking 3. There is no difference in the mean rating of male and female respondents in the possible ways to curb the menace of human trafficking.

Significance of the study
The study would be of immense significance to various communities and people therein as it would expose the methods used by traffickers to enslave victims. The study would help would be victims to understand that they were only being deceived by traffickers into the trade and that the trade is to make them lose their human dignity and integrity. The study would help the government to reposition the strategies for curbing human trafficking, make policies that would be more effective in curbing human traffickers from this slavery endeavours. The study would make students in tertiary institutions to realize that promises of going abroad for greener pasture is fake as pastures there are not greener than in Nigeria.

Research Method
Research design: The study employs a descriptive survey research design.

Population:
The population consisted all young men and women and adults in the local government areas under study.

Sample and sampling technique:
Two local government areas were purposively chosen for the study one in Ekiti and one in Oyo State. These LGAs are Ado Ekiti Local Government area in Ekiti state and Ibadan North Local Government area in Oyo Stae.
Stratified random sampling technique was used to select a sample size of 100 of which 98 copies of the questionnaire distributed were valid for analysis. Five wards were selected for sampling in each of the local government area used for the study and 10 respondents were chosen from each ward as samples making a total of 100 respondents .

Instrument for data collection
The instrument used was a self-designed questionnaire titled "Curbing the Menace of Human Trafficking" to collect the data for the study. This was done on a 4-Likert scale of Strongly Agreed (SA -4), Agreed (A -3), Disagreed (D -2) and Strongly Agreed (SD -1 point). 100 copies of the questionnaire were distributed by the researcher and her assistants. The distribution spans through the elite and non elite groups to feel their impulses on human trafficking.

Validity
The questionnaire was validated by experts in the Department of Tests, Measurement and Evaluation of Ekiti State University and a professor of Adult Education in the same University.

Reliability
The instrument was pre-tested at an interval of two weeks on 30 respondents outside the sample size using Pearson's Product Moment correlation coefficient yielding a reliability index of 0.76 which was deemed good enough for the study.

DataAnalysis
Data were analysed using mean and standard deviation for the research questions while t-test was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. A mean cut off of 2.50 was adopted as the decision rule to accept or reject the items.

Research Question 1:
What are the causes of human trafficking in Nigeria communities?  The table above reveals that the seven itemized causes among others for human trafficking such as lack of awareness, poverty, greed, harsh economic situation, unemployment, negative effect of social media and lack of proper home training had the mean ranging between 3.46 and 4.11. The grand mean of 3.86 is well above 2.50 which is the decision rule. This shows that all the highlighted causes are responsible for human trafficking.

Research Question 2:
What are the various forms of methods used in human trafficking? The table above shows that all stated above are possible methods used by human traffickers to lure victims into trafficking; sweet statement as to job provision, education and gifts to parents are used to lure victims. To instill fear in them, they are made to make blood covenants, and swear in front of gods. These had the mean ranging between 3.40 and 4.15 with a grand mean of 3.79 which is above the decision rule. This indicates that every respondent agreed to the methods used by human traffickers to trap their victims.  Table 3 showed that respondents agreed that the itemized items are some of the measures that could be put in place to curb the menace of human trafficking. The average mean rating is 3.59 which is much more than the decision rule of 2.50. This means that all the respondents agreed that the above stated means are important to curbing the menace of human trafficking in Nigerian communities.  The table above shows that the t-cal of male and female were 0.41 and 1.20 which are less than the t-crit of 1.96 at 0.05 and degree of freedom of 27 and 68. This shows that the hypothesis that states that there is no significant difference between the mean rating of males and females opinions on the causes of human trafficking is upheld.

Hypothesis 2:
There is no significant difference between the mean rating of male and female respondents on the various forms and methods used in human trafficking.  Table 5 shows that the T-cal of males and females which were 0.37 and 1.19 respectively were less than the t-crit of 1.96 at 0.05 level of significance and at the degree of freedom 27 and 68 respectively. This indicates that both male and female respondents agreed on the methods used for human trafficking.

Hypothesis 3:
There is no difference in the mean rating of male and female respondents on the possible ways to curb the menace of human trafficking. The table 6 above shows that the t-cal of males and females were 0.42 and 1.11 which are less than the t-crit of 1.96 at 0.05 and degree of freedom of 68 and 27. This implies that there is no difference in the mean rating of male and female respondents opinion on the suggested ways of curbing human trafficking in Nigerian communities.

Discussion
The study revealed that human trafficking can be caused by a lot of reasons such as poverty, lack of awareness on human trafficking, greed, unemployment and harsh economic situation in the country. This finding is in line with the earlier submission of Olateru-Olagbegi (2013) that the root causes of human trafficking may be categorized into pull and push factors. She said push factors include poverty, gender, high unemployment rates, corruption and bad governance, low level of education and pull factors include things such as high rates of migration, demand for cheap labour and ignorance of legal and human rights issues among others. This indicates that there are varying causes of human trafficking and efforts must be made to curb such. Akwe, (2015) reveals poverty is one of the great causes of human trafficking. Supporting the fact, the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) said that over 120 million Nigerians are living below poverty level. The manager for Social Security, Ismail Agatha said statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed that 71 per cent of Nigerians were living below poverty line. He claimed further that NBS data of 2012 claimed that 71 per cent of Nigerians live below the poverty line which translates to about one dollar and 20 cents per day; meaning that about 120 million citizens are poor.
This finding is also in support of the earlier web, document of "Action for Justice (www.sndoluo.org/action-for-Justice/What-are-the-causes-of-Trafficking.cfm). The document states that women and children are the key target group because of their marginalization in many societies and their limited economic resources. This document also highlighted reasons for falling victims as; people with low level of education, people from impoverished and low income household among others.
The study also revealed the methods used in human trafficking, such as promises of better education and better job opportunities and other beautiful promises. This finding is in line with trafficking techniques as highlighted in Olateru-Olagbegi (2013); such techniques include: enlisting the help of local persons and villagers to highlight vulnerable families, deceit of various magnitude and debt bondage among others. These methods show that without the help of villagers or those who are very close to the family of the victims, there may be some difficulties in carrying out human trafficking.