Child trafficking is modern-day slavery where children are conveyed and harbored to a discreet location for sexual and domestic labor exploitation. These child victims are compelled to engage in horrendous activities like prostitution and serving as domestic staff to households and local businesses. Residents of rural settlements often lack access to quality education, good health services, and other amenities, making them vulnerable to child traffickers’ deceits. Child traffickers come like a messiah to victims (mostly large size families) with false promises of saving them from their misery by taking their children to the city or sometimes to a foreign country to give them good education and better welfare. Child trafficking is happening everywhere in Nigeria, but it is predominantly common in Edo, Akwa-Ibom, Imo, Ebonyi, Oyo, Ogun, and Lagos. Other than large family size, the following are the causes of child trafficking in Nigeria.
Poverty
Illiteracy
Unemployment
Peer-pressure
Corruption
Broken home
“Trafficking deprives child victims the privileged to exercise their wide range of rights, including the right to belong and identify, the right to freedom, education among others” ANPPCAN (2010.) The outcome of this inhumane activity include
Disease contraction
Death
Alcoholism
Drug abuse
Unwanted pregnancy
Psychological trauma
High school drop-out
Bad international reputation
Although the Nigeria Government has measures in place to tackle child trafficking like rehabilitation of victims and prosecution of traffickers, the underlying causes of child trafficking have to be wiped-out at root levels. The Mary Nwamadi Foundation has been on a continuous path to fight child trafficking in Nigeria by reaching out to schools, students, and parents in rural settlement by giving them lectures on child trafficking and by providing them with essential supplies.