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Between Prosecutors and Counsellors: State and Non-state Actors in the Rehabilitation of Victims of Human Trafficking in Nigeria

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Gender and Mobility in Africa

Abstract

Nigeria was the first African country to domesticate the United Nations’ Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children. Despite this stride, the result of the fight against human trafficking in Nigeria has not yielded commensurate fruits to justify the resources invested. Nigeria still accounts for one of the highest stock of victims of human trafficking from the subregion. This chapter examines the activities of two governmental agencies: Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) and National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons and Other Related Matters (NAPTIP) and two foremost non-governmental organizations involved in the rehabilitation of returnee trafficked victims (Women Trafficking and Child Labour Eradication Foundation (WOTCLEF) and IDIA Renaissance). Findings revealed that certain factors were responsible for the ineffectiveness of state interventions and policies in the management of human trafficking in Nigeria. Some of these include: inadequate synergies between governmental and non-governmental organizations; political patronage of the non-governmental organizations which makes them less effective as soon as their patrons lose political power; the combination of the functions of counselling and prosecution by NAPTIP, which makes them lose the trust of most victims and their families; and inadequacy of the existing laws to tackle contemporary challenges and innovations of human trafficking. The chapter suggests some policy propositions. These include creating clearly defined divisions of activities between governmental and non-governmental organizations and adopting a holistic policy response to human trafficking that balances a criminal justice approach with a human rights approach. The policy implementation also needs to be informed by social realities considering certain socio-cultural factors peculiar to the country.

The author acknowledges the support of the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), Canada, for providing financial support to carry out this research through the African Initiative Grant and Dr. Bonny Ibhawoh of the Department of History, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada, for his contribution to the conceptualization of this chapter.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Nigeria Immigration Service (2013): History of the Nigeria Immigration Service. Available at the NIS website, http://www.immigration.gov.ng/index.php?id=3

  2. 2.

    Atsenuwa and Adepoju (2010) highlight a number of case studies whereby African migrants, especially Nigerians were deported in the most inhumane circumstances, often leading to the demise of the deported migrants.

  3. 3.

    These challenges were enumerated by the Comptroller of Immigration, NIS Headquarters, Abuja, Nigeria in an interview with the author.

  4. 4.

    The present arrangement is that NAPTIP prosecutes the traffickers under the law and also provides counselling services for victims. However, most victims are reluctant to cooperate with NAPTIP and they would rather cooperate with NGOs. This is having a serious impact on the prosecution of traffickers as well as the rehabilitation of victims.

  5. 5.

    Some EU destination countries reportedly work directly with NGOs due to human rights issues involved in human trafficking. In a situation where trafficked persons are perceived as victims, they are seen as needing counselling and rehabilitation rather than punishment, which they believe NAPTIP as a law enforcement agent would resort to if the victims were handed over to them.

  6. 6.

    Edo State is known as the hub of human trafficking in Africa (Carling 2006).

  7. 7.

    It is worthy of note that the Bill that led to the creation of NAPTIP was sponsored by the founder of WOTCLEF and was signed into law by the then president of Nigeria Olusegun Obasanjo only a week after the National Assembly passed the Bill. This development is, however, dwarfed by the fact that ten years after the Bill became a Law, it was only amended once in 2005.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria

    Lanre Olusegun Ikuteyijo

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  1. Lanre Olusegun Ikuteyijo
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Historical Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa

    Kalpana Hiralal

  2. African Centre for Migration & Society, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Zaheera Jinnah

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Ikuteyijo, L.O. (2018). Between Prosecutors and Counsellors: State and Non-state Actors in the Rehabilitation of Victims of Human Trafficking in Nigeria. In: Hiralal, K., Jinnah, Z. (eds) Gender and Mobility in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65783-7_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65783-7_8

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