Despite ongoing efforts by the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) and the Nigerian Immigration Service, the trafficking of young Nigerian girls into forced prostitution abroad continues unabated, CDA News Nigeria gathered.
A viral video last week showed a young Nigerian woman in Mali pleading for government intervention, describing squalid forest shanties where trafficked girls are forced into prostitution to pay off debts exceeding N5 million. She revealed that traffickers compromise immigration officers at Nigeria’s borders to move girls across undetected.
In a related development, five girls rescued from Cote d’Ivoire disclosed they were forced to sleep with up to 11 men daily. Seventeen-year-old Monica Emmanuel from Benue State said she was promised a baking job before being trafficked through Lagos into Cote d’Ivoire, where her phone was seized and threats were made against her family.
Eighteen-year-old Juliet Timothy, a trained hairdresser, said traffickers forced her to record fake happy videos for her family while holding her captive.
The victims were rescued through a coordinated operation involving NAPTIP’s Lagos Zonal Command and the Global Anti-Human Trafficking Organisation (GAHTO), led by Prosper K. Michael, with support from local Ivorian authorities in the Bagoué and Worodougou regions.
Migration expert Osita Osemene attributed the trend to Nigeria’s economic hardship, urging government to fix the economy and clamp down on compromised border officials enabling traffickers’ operations.
Survivors have called on President Bola Tinubu and security agencies to intensify border surveillance and rescue efforts for Nigerians still trapped abroad.
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