Child trafficking rife
2001-07-15 19:48
Lagos - Nigeria loses several thousand children to human trafficking a year, the Vanguard newspaper said on Sunday, quoting an International Labour Organisation (ILO) report.
The paper quoted the ILO report as saying that in 1996 alone, over
4 000 children were trafficked from the southern and southeast parts of the country. It said the children were kidnapped and sold as slaves through Benin, Gabon, Togo, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast and Cameroon.
The paper said at least 20 cases of child trafficking across Nigerian borders in the northern state of Sokoto were also reported monthly.
It said such minors were often subjected to prostitution, homosexuality and other abuses.
Last month, a prominent Lagos businesswoman Bisi Dan Musa was charged with abducting 15 children and engaging in child
trafficking.
The Nigerian parliament is currently debating a bill to ban child trafficking and in May signed the African charter on the rights of the child. - AFP
- SAPA