Analysis of Precipitating Factors and Practices Relating to Trafficking in Persons in Cross River State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study was conducted to determine practices relating to human trafficking and also identify factors responsible for the trend in Cross River state. The study adopted Purposive and snow ball sampling methods to select participants while Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and Key Informant Interview (KII) methods were used to collect data. Data analysis for FGD involved review, transcription and summarization of the discussion; for KII, transcription of responses of the Key Informants Interview was made. The study reveals that common behavioural practices associated with human trafficking include begging, commercial sex, domestic services, bar and restaurant services, hawking, baby reproduction and ritual money. Human traffickers often seek consent of parents of the victims to transport them while others hide under the guise of offering employment to potential victims or settling them after their period of service in order to lure victims into human trafficking ring within and outside the country. Other practices involve baby reproduction and sale by hospitals and orphanage homes. Often voodoo is used to subject the victims under their perpetual control. The study discovered that factors responsible for human trafficking in the study area included economic motivation, poverty, search for employment and lack of knowledge on human trafficking. These precipitating factors seem to be more or less structural in nature and falls within the Marxist analysis of the causes of human trafficking. The study therefore recommends for carefully planned and well implemented poverty eradication programmes for vulnerable group, creation of employment opportunities both for educated and uneducated youth, regular monitoring of health and orphanage institutions to follow up babies giving up for adoption and creation of awareness on human trafficking on the different methods used by traffickers to lure people to the business and how to avoid being a victim.

Keywords: Trafficking in Persons, Human Trafficking, Cheap Labour, Poverty, Child Adoption, Welfare.