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6. Internal Child Trafficking in Nigeria: Transcending Legal Borders
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6 Internal Child Trafficking in Nigeria: Transcending Legal Borders Oluwatoyin O. Oluwaniyi Introduction 64 children in a Mercedes Benz mini bus attracted the attention of vigilant policemen on the Onitsha–Benin Expressway. When the vehicle was flagged down by the officers they became more curious at the sight of the kids on bare-feet, without travelling bags and school uniforms to suggest that they were on an excursion. The policemen from the Delta State Command, suspecting child trafficking, promptly arrested the bus driver … he was conveying the children, who are within the ages of 5 and 16 years… (Ogefere 2004:1). This report reveals one of the greatest challenges facing children in a globalized world. Trafficking today is a global phenomenon as children are trafficked to and from all regions of the world. About 1.2 million children are trafficked without any gender distinction for various purposes ranging from forced labour in commercial farming, petty crimes, the drug trade, prostitution, domestic service and rituals within and across borders (Ogefere 2004:1). Nigeria is not exempted as the intensity and rate of child trafficking in Nigeria today is alarming to the extent that the phenomenon has attracted global attention. Child trafficking became glaring in Nigeria when the world media focused on the mystery surrounding the Etireno ship, believed to be full of children between ages 3 and 13 being trafficked to Gabon on 17 April 2001 (UNICEF 2002). Since this incident, efforts have been made by concerned bodies, including local and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to stem the ‘slavery’ of children. But while focus has been centred mostly on external trafficking of children and youths, especially girls, and how to eradicate it, internal trafficking of children from villages to cities or from one town to another has either been ignored or seen as 82 Children and Youth in the Labour Process in Africa ‘normal’, and hence the trend of child trafficking has tilted towards an increase in internal (intra-state or rural–urban) trafficking. In addition, traffickers have also introduced new methods of trafficking children in order to avoid the prying eyes of the police, and the traffickers will not easily or quickly give up their profitable expolitation of vulnerable children. Though not new, the idea of placing children with other families, relations and friends is an age-long cultural phenomenon. To Akinmoyo: it was the norm during that period that every man and woman saw themselves as their neighbour’s keeper, hence, it was a ‘we’ disposition to life rather than an ‘I’ disposition. It was normal to expect that in your absence, your neighbour will keep an eye on your possessions (Dayo 2004). However, with pervasive economic crises coupled with the problem of debt and structural adjustment, leading to unemployment for a majority of citizens, a fall in living standards as well as increases in the costs of living, and extreme poverty of much of the populace, especially in the rural areas (Ogwumike 2001), what seemed to have been a cultural phenomenon has been exploited as a ‘money-making venture whereby children are transported as commodities to be sold in the market, priced and exchanged for money like any other article in the market (Agbu 2003:2). Taking advantage of the impoverished status of rural dwellers and of the demand for cheap and malleable labour in the cities, middlemen (traffickers) in Nigeria are known to engage in internal trafficking of children from villages in Akwa-Ibom, Anambra, Abia, Cross River, Edo, Imo, Kwara, Ondo and Oyo States to the cities of Lagos, Port Harcourt, Abuja and Ibadan, to mention but a few, where most of the children are used in an exploitative manner. In spite of the conventions and national laws guiding and protecting children from trafficking and exploitative labour as well as eradicating the use of children as slaves, such as the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN) (UNICEF 1989), 2,000 Optional Protocol to the CRC on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography (UN)(UNICEF 2002), Convention No.182 of the International Labour Organization on the Worst Forms of Child Labour (UN)(ILO 1999; ILO-IPU 2002), 2,000 Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime known as the Palermo Protocol (ILO)(ILO 2002) and at the sub-regional level, the Libreville 2000 Common Platform for Action and A Declaration and A Plan of...