Posted by From Amby Uneze in Calabar on
Apart from concerted efforts by different Non-governmental Organisations (NGO) in Nigeria and in the world to eradicate child abuse, child labour, child trafficking and other infringements on the right of the child, an approximated 1.2 million children are being trafficked every year, the United Nations (UN) has revealed.
Apart from concerted efforts by different Non-governmental Organisations (NGO) in Nigeria and in the world to eradicate child abuse, child labour, child trafficking and other infringements on the right of the child, an approximated 1.2 million children are being trafficked every year, the United Nations (UN) has revealed.
According to the UN report, between $7 to $10 billion are made from trafficking children worldwide, adding that the pattern of trafficking varies from region to region.
Quoting the UN report the Executive Director Light Bearers organisation (LBO), a non-governmental organisation, Mrs Gbubemi Bridget Idiodi, observe that in West Africa, where there is long history of trafficking, children from Benin, Togo and Nigeria are sent by ships to Gbaon as domestic servants, while children from Mali and Burkina Faso are trafficked to Cote d'lvoire mainly as domestic servants and to work in plantations.
In an address at the year 2004, World Day for the prevention of child abuse in collaboration with the Women's World Summit Foundation of Switzerland, Mrs Idiodi pointed out that about 3,000 children are also trafficked yearly to Greece and Italy to beg on the streets and prostitution.
Again, she said that in Nigeria, especially Cross River, children are loaded in lorries from some parts of the Northern parts of the state to other parts of Nigeria at househelps adding that funding from recent survey conducted in some cities in Nigeria, reveals that, out of 19 per cent of children trafficked, 98 per cent were Nigerians, 92 per cent were between the ages of 10 and 16 years of 2:3 boys to girls ratio.