THE Director General of the National Agency for the Trafficking in Person, Barrister Julie Okah-Donli, has raised the alarm over the growing tide of cross-border trafficking of minors for exploitative labour.
She said urgent steps must be taken to check this deplorable trend of trafficking of children to work in stone quarries and plantations in some parts of Nigeria and Benin Republic.
The NAPTIP DG, spoke on Thursday in Abuja at the stakeholders meeting for the development of country position for the 10th Nigeria-Benin Republic Joint Consultation on response to Trafficking in Persons, especially women and children, sponsored by Terre des hommes.
Child labour in Nigeria is the employment of children under the age of 18 in a manner that restrict or prevent them from basic education and development and is pervasive in every state of the country.
A recent report indicated that the number of child workers was estimated at about 15 million in Nigeria with poverty as a major factor that drives child labour in the country.
Okah-Donli, noted that the joint partnership between Nigeria and Benin Republic was necessitated by the steady increase in the movement of children across the common borders for labour employment.
She said: “These children were subjected to the most despicable conditions inimical to their normal development process as children. Over the years, a migration pattern of children from Benin Republic to border states in South-West Nigeria for labour exploitation in homes and stone quarries had been observed.
“Against this backdrop, the Nigeria and Benin Republic signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in 2005, to provide an effective platform to check cross-border trafficking of children,” she said.
She, therefore, called for further deepening of efforts in the areas of law enforcement, and linkages amongst civil society organisations in both countries in order to ensure effective and sustainable intervention efforts.
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