Are you proud to be among the youth of this generation? But do you know that half of the 215million young workers are observed to be in hazardous sectors including forced sex work and forced street begging?
On a lighter note, I am not talking about those who ask for urgent ‘2k’ or Amaka who ask for transport fare to visit you but will not show up. No, I am not talking of that
I am talking about the young girls you always see in bars, hotels, restaurants, beaches, or even that your street. The ones you think are easily accessible because you have the money for spag and chicken laps or indomie and egg. What about the children who can’t speak good English helping wholesalers in their shops?
It is estimated by the international labour organization (ILO) that forced labour alone (which is one of the components of human trafficking) generates 150billion dollars per annum as of 2014. Just imagine
It hurts to hear that women and children are common victims. 51% are women, 28% are children, 21% are men while 72% in the sex industry are women.
Do you really have a job or you are a victim of human trafficking?
Some of the jobs out there can be proven to be human trafficking by nature. The arrangement may be structured as a work contract but with no or low payment or on highly exploitative terms.
For a moment, I thought of if it that even the Nigerian government can human traffic her citizen considering the minimum wage. Can 30k naira sustain a man for 30days? That is one thousand naira per day including transportation, feeding, and shelter. No wardrobe allowance actually. Smiles
What is Human Trafficking?
I am sure that you can google that yourself so why bother to give you a definition? I will go ahead to tell you the element of trafficking.
- Human trafficking is different from adoption!
- Human trafficking is different from human/people smuggling but smuggling leads to trafficking.
When human is traded using coercion or deception for organ trade, forced labour, sexual slavery, forced marriage, for the traffickers or others, then that is Human trafficking.
As long as the consent of the person is restricted or influenced against his/her will and he/she is going to be exploited, then human trafficking has just taken place.
After reading this, think about your job again; don’t think because you hear ‘traffic’ means you have to be moved to another extreme location before you can be a victim. That is not true. The goal of a trafficker is to turn victims into slaves. So wherever they do it is not very important, they just want to exploit victims.
But I have a biased view at a point.
I will be glad if here me out and let us discuss.
Some of these victims walk into it themselves because of poverty, unemployment. They are trying to escape discrimination, improve their lives, and support their families.
For example, earlier last year, my mum was clamoring for help. She is separated from dad and the children are not around. She has a shop and she needed someone to help her. After a long search, she eventually found a little girl between the age of 10 and 15.
Let me tell you why I am biased. When the girl came, it is evident that she is lacking some basic needs of life and to my surprise, my mum treats her like her own child. In fact, she has collected the lastborn title from me and it hurts. Smiles
She goes to school and has access to the basic things I had access to when I was her age. She is free to express herself. She drags the GOtv remote with me.
I know we can call this adoption but it is dicey. I don’t know the agreement my mum had with her parent but I think there is a transaction of monthly or yearly payments. I am not sure though
So here is my question
Can we say that some trafficking is favorable?
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This is an eye opener.
Concerning the last question if trafficking can be favorable, for a period it may be, but at the long run the victim would can realize how bad he or she needs freedom and it might be too late at that time. Stopping it is actually the real deal.
This is very true. This is a typical case of violation of the human right of movement through coercion.
Thank you for responding.
Thanks for sharing this great pieces. So educative. I didn’t thought of some of the things you shared as trafficking but then you’re right. To answer your question, some trafficking can be favourable but human’s freedom is a great asset. so if one is being denied of it, such person isn’t living for him or herself but rather someone else.
Human freedom.. Very important.
Thank you for responding.
But a thought came in just now.
What about the children and adults that still don’t get the freedom they ‘desire or entitled to’ despite living with their parents.
Recently, a story was flying around about a guy complaining about how his dad maltreats him.
What do you have to say to this?
This is really an eye opener.thanks for this timely piece