Crime and Delinquency Control

HUMAN TRAFFICKING A SEMINAR PAPER PREPARED BY ELEGBOGUN OSERERE JULIET
COURSE TITLE: CLASSICAL THEORIES OF CRIME, DELINQUENCY AND SECURITIES
COURSE CODE: 800 IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT FOR THE AWARD OF MASTER IN CRIMINOLOGY DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF LAGOS LECTURER : PROFESSOR SOYOMBO OMOLOLU FEBRUARY, 2013.

ABSTRACT
With the rapidly increasing rate of migration – a by-product of a more globalised world – human traffickers have greater opportunities to exploit those who migrate to other States. First, human trafficking is driven by poverty and international productivity/living quality disparities. Second, the existing humanitarian and/or suppressive approaches cannot solve the problem. Third, the best option for solving the problem is setting up the ‘reciprocal direct investment’ (RDI) scheme between leading and lagged economies.
The RDI scheme can facilitate improvements in the quality of public governance in lagged economies and directly promote international competition, efficiency, trade liberalization and division of labor. The resulting convergence in global living quality at a higher level across nations will eliminate the root causes of illicit migrations

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The problem stated in this seminar paper is based on human trafficking in Nigeria that emerges as a result of the unstable socio-factors of the Nigerian society. The problem associated with human trafficking anchored on the need to live a wealthy live and quest of getting greener pastures with little or no formal education. Every day, increasing number of men, women and children are trafficked from one city to neighbouring countries and across continents with promised of better life outside their comfort zones. In the cause of searching for greener pasture, they are coerced into work they have not chosen and subjected to perpetual life in bondage. They work under strenuous conditions and do not receive the wage that was promised them.
BACKGROUND
Trafficking in persons is a form of modern-day slavery, a human rights violation that constitutes a crime against the individual and the State. Human trafficking permeates diverse institutions whose systematic operations are entwined into a multitude of activities.
Trafficking in persons is driven by gender inequality, the absence of equal opportunity, stark intra- and inter-State economic disparities, corruption and vulnerability due to failing judicial and law enforcement systems, civil instability and the failure of States to protect and provide for their citizens. Demand for commercial sex and cheap construction, manufacturing, industrial and domestic labour is a contributing factor.
Trafficking in persons cannot be combated through crime control or prosecution alone; its criminalization is imperative but insufficient. Anti-trafficking legislation should also recognize trafficked persons as victims entitled to protection of their basic human rights. Laws on immigration, labour, health and child protection must be reviewed and amended to cover all aspects of trafficking, so as to provide a comprehensive framework for addressing the phenomenon. They must then be effectively enforced and their implementation monitored.
Trafficking in persons is a global problem that transcends national boundaries. It is thus often a transnational crime, similar in nature to international drug and arms trafficking. It therefore requires transnational policies that engage international cooperation through information exchange and mutual assistance. This study gave rise to certain questions such as:
What is human trafficking?
What are the causes and effects of human trafficking?
What are the factors that influence human trafficking?
How can human trafficking be controlled?
DEFINITION OF TERMS. Human Trafficking
Human trafficking is a complex process, and does not involve one single act which is easily distinguishable or recognizable. It is clandestine and operates within illegal systems and structures, which makes it difficult to trace and prosecute. The Trafficking in Persons Protocol provides them with an internationally agreed definition, which they are to use as a basis to define the crime of trafficking in domestic legislation. It states “’Trafficking in persons’ shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation” (Art.3, sub-par a)
The definition states that the process of human trafficking can be divided into three related components: the movement of people, the means of controlling people, and the purpose of exploitation.

Human Trafficker
A human trafficker is one who participates in one or more stages of the human trafficking. These stages could be either human trafficking process such as recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation or all of the above mentioned.

Victim of Trafficking
Victim of trafficking is a person who is being recruited, transported, transferred, harboured, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, due to vulnerability of the victim, for the purpose of exploitation.

In accordance with this definition, the crime of trafficking in persons has three constituent elements:
1. An act (what is done): recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons;
2. The means (how it is done): threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person; and
3. An exploitative purpose (why it is done): this includes, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.

LITERATURE REVIEW
There seems to be no end to the humiliating act of human trafficking in Nigeria. It is even more unfortunate that some of the victims, especially young ladies, are trafficked to smaller West African countries that look up to Nigeria. Only recently, the Nigerian Ambassador to Mali, Mr. Iliya Nuhu, had cause to lament that the problem of human trafficking had grown in magnitude and sophistication to the extent that a good number of Nigerians in his country of posting seemed to be thriving on it. He described the development as akin to modern day slavery with some unscrupulous Nigerians now recruiting from their villages and towns young girls between the ages of 10 and 15 which are then sold into lives of misery. According to the ambassador, about 20 to 30 girls are trafficked to Mali daily, with the promise of securing for them good jobs only to turn them to prostitutes.
Nigerians were trafficked to Europe, the Middle East, and other countries in Africa for the purposes of forced labor, domestic servitude, and sexual exploitation. Girls and women were trafficked for forced prostitution to Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Cote d'Ivoire, and Benin. Children were trafficked for involuntary domestic and agricultural labor and street peddling within the country and to countries in West and Central Africa. Both women and children were trafficked to Saudi Arabia. The country was a destination country for children trafficked for forced labor from other West African countries, primarily Benin.
Women and children were most at risk of being trafficked. Boys were trafficked primarily to work as forced bondage laborers, street peddlers, and beggars, while girls were trafficked for domestic service, street peddling, and commercial sexual exploitation. Trafficking in children, and to a lesser extent in women, occurred within the country's borders. Children in rural areas were trafficked to urban centers to work as domestics, street peddlers, merchant traders, and beggars.
The United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported that individual criminals and organized criminal groups conducted trafficking, often involving relatives or other persons already known to the victims. Traffickers employed various methods during the year. Many were organized into specialties, such as document and passport forgery, recruitment, and transportation. To recruit young women, traffickers often made false promises of legitimate work outside the country. Traffickers also deceived child victims and their parents with promises of education, training, and salary payments. Once away from their families, children were subjected to harsh treatment and intimidation. Traffickers subjected victims to debt bondage, particularly victims forced into prostitution. In some cases, traffickers employed practitioners of traditional magic, or juju, to threaten victims with curses to procure their silence. NAPTIP estimated that 90 percent of the girls trafficked through Benin routes were threatened by juju practitioners. Victims were transported by air, land, and sea. Established land routes to Europe transited Benin, Togo, Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Niger, and Morocco.
There are chilling statistics which suggest that human trafficking has become one of the biggest money making businesses after drug trafficking today. It is therefore rather shameful that our country is regarded not only as a transit route for this illegal trade but also a source as well as a destination with children and young adults, especially of the womenfolk, now becoming merchandise for what has become a cross-border crime.
It is instructive to note that to combat this challenge, the federal government had in 2003 enacted the Trafficking in Persons Law Enforcement and Administration Act. It was amended in 2005 to prescribe more severe penalties for offenders as well as prohibits all forms of human trafficking. Despite that, human trafficking remains a major challenge in our country today while the non-domestication of the Child Rights Act by many states has only compounded the problem.
In what is clearly an organized crime involving international syndicates, human traffickers’ move their victims to Europe through North Africa by caravan, most often forcing their victims to cross the desert on foot. In the process many die even as the survivors are subjected to all forms of indignity, in the bid to repay the heavy debts owed their “benefactors” by way of travel expenses. But the trade is thriving because while in the past NAPTIP had been able to secure convictions for trafficking offences. That is no longer the case as most of the people involved wield powerful influence with which they circumvent the law governments, at all levels, in the efforts to provide adequate framework for the protection of the Nigerian child. Even when our country took the right step in establishing the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons and related matters (NAPTIP) in 2004, the agency has been downgraded to Tier 2 status because of its inability to maintain its vigour. NAPTIP has been handicapped by influential Nigerians who seek the release of human traffickers and a lack of an ECOWAS Framework to collaborate with transit countries.
STATISTICAL DATA OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN NIGERIA
According to National Agency for Prohibition of Traffic in Persons and other related matters (NAPTIP), an estimated 4.5 million persons are trafficked internationally, while about 10,000 are trafficked from Nigeria annually. A UNICEF report on the phenomenon revealed that four per cent of repatriated victims of international trafficking in Nigeria are children. The female/male ratio is seven to three. In Nigeria, only 168 convictions have been recorded by the NAPTIP, the agency saddled with the responsibility of tacking the problems associated with human trafficking. NAPTIP said it has been difficult obtaining accurate statistics on the trafficking situation in Africa because of the nature of the illicit trade – those involved in the illegal occupation conduct it in a seemingly decent manner and ease that their victims do not suspect any foul play.
According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), out of 12.3 million forced labour victims worldwide, 2.5 million people are victims of human trafficking with 161 countries reported to be affected. The ILO figures present a conservative estimate of actual victims at any given point in time, estimated over a period of 10 years. Of great concern is the fact that 1.2 million victims of human trafficking are mainly women and children between the ages of 18 and 24 who are trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. ILO estimates, however, indicates that 32 percent of all victims were trafficked into labour exploitation while 43 percent and 25 percent respectively were trafficked for sexual exploitation and a mixture of both.
According to UN Traffic in Persons Report was more likely to lead labour trafficking investigations (29%) than sex trafficking investigations (7%). Between 2005 and 20012 incidents confirmed to be human trafficking by high data quality task forces, * More than half (62%) of the confirmed labour trafficking victims were age 25 or older, compared to 13% of confirmed sex trafficking victims. * Confirmed sex trafficking victims were more likely to be White (26%) or African (40%), compared to labour trafficking victims, who were more likely to be Hispanic (63%) or Asian (17%). * Four-fifths of victims (83%) in confirmed sex trafficking incidents were identified as U.S. non citizens, while most confirmed labor trafficking victims were identified as undocumented aliens (67%) or qualified aliens (28%). * Most confirmed human trafficking suspects were male (81%). More than half (62%) of confirmed sex trafficking suspects were identified as black, while confirmed labour trafficking suspects were more likely to be identified as African – Nigerians predominantly(48%).

THEORETICAL APPROACH TO HUMAN TRAFFICKING
In this seminar, the following theories were used to analyzed human trafficking 1 Conflict Theory:
Similar to international trade in goods and service, international ‘exchange of people’ is a profitable business because globalization has made it easier to move people around the world. At the same time, polarization of global development has also made the earning gap of labour services increasingly divergent across countries while people who want to move to leading countries for jobs and earnings are facing ever more stringent barriers on legal migration. The growing, but unsatisfied demand for legal migration options has created a breeding ground for illicit migrations that include human trafficking and smuggling. Criminal organizations take the migration demand and make enormous profit from people’s desire to gain from the income disparities across nations. It contributes to the vicious circle of crime, corruption, violence, poverty and underdevelopment in the lagged economies. There are different groups in society; there are conflicts between these groups that generate economic inequality. Human trafficking is the result of excessive ambition that creates a market for trafficking with men, women and children who are engaged in all forms of forced labor, including mining, domestic service, construction work and sweatshops, as well as sexual exploitation.
The groups that conflict here are the traffickers and the industries that surround them with the trafficked people and all those who use them for their own benefit creating a demand.
The fundamental causes of human trafficking are social and economic forces that function within the society. Neoclassical theory
Neoclassical theory posits that factors such as geographic proximity, border enforcement, probability and consequences of arrest, ease of illegal employment, and chances of future legalization govern the likelihood of "successful" illegal immigration. This model also assumes that illegal workers tend to add to, and compete with, the receiving nation's pool of unskilled laborers. Illegal workers in this model find employment by accepting lower wages than native-born workers, sometimes below the minimum wage and "off-the-books". Economist George Borjas supports aspects of this model, calculating that real wages of US workers without a high school degree declined by 9% from 1980–2000 due to competition from illegal immigrant workers.
Large-scale economic evidence supports neoclassical theory, as may be seen in the long-term correlation of relative wages/unemployment and illegal immigration from rural to the urban centers. However, immigration scholars such as Gordon Hanson and Douglas Massey have criticized the model for being oversimplified and not accounting for contradictory evidence, such as low net illegal immigration from rural to the urban centers before the 1980s despite significant economic disparity. Numerous refinements have been suggested to account for other factors, as seen below.
TYPES OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING
There are four broad categories of exploitation linked to human trafficking:
1. Sexual Exploitation
Sexual exploitation involves any non-consensual or abusive sexual acts performed without a victim’s permission. This includes but is not limited to prostitution, escort work and pornography. Women, men and children of both sexes can be victims. Many will have en deceived with promises of a better life and then controlled through violence and abuse.
2. Forced Labour
Forced labour involves victims being compelled to work very long hours, often in arduous conditions, and to hand over the majority if not all of their wages to their traffickers. Forced labour crucially implies the use of coercion and lack of freedom or choice for the victim. In many cases victims are subjected to verbal threats or violence to achieve compliance.
Manufacturing, entertainment, travel, farming and construction industries throughout the world have been found to use forced labour by victims of human trafficking to some extent, with a marked increase in reported numbers in recent years. Often large numbers of individuals are housed in single dwellings and there is evidence of ‘hot bunking’, where a returning shift takes up the sleeping accommodation of those starting the next shift.
The International Labour Organization [ILO] has identified six elements which individually or collectively can indicate forced labour.
These are: * Threats or actual physical harm; * Restriction of movement and confinement to the workplace or to a limited area; * Debt-bondage; * Withholding of wages or excessive wage reductions that violate previously made agreements; * Retention of passports and identity documents (the workers can neither leave nor prove their identity status); and, * Threat of denunciation to the authorities where the worker is of illegal status.

3. Domestic Servitude
Domestic servitude involves the victim being forced to work in private households. Their movement will often be restricted and they will be forced to perform household tasks such as child care and house-keeping over long hours and for little if any pay.
Victims will lead very isolated lives and have little or no unsupervised freedom. Their own privacy and comfort will be minimal, often sleeping on a mattress on the floor in an open part of the house.
In rare circumstances where victims receive a wage it will be heavily reduced, ostensibly to pay for food and accommodation.
4. Organ Harvesting
Organ harvesting involves trafficking people in order to use their internal organs for transplant. The illegal trade is dominated by kidneys, which are in the greatest demand and are the only major organs that can be wholly transplanted with relatively few risks to the life of the donor.
FACTORS THAT INFLUENCES HUMAN TRAFFICKING. 1. Vulnerable populations cannot be helped to protect themselves from harm unless there is a clear understanding of what makes them vulnerable in the first place. Any response to trafficking in persons must therefore be grounded in comprehension of the conditions or factors affecting vulnerability. In the context of trafficking in persons, the primary causes of vulnerability are economic, social, cultural, legal and political in nature. 2. Economic factors are addressed directly in the Trafficking in Persons Protocol, which mentions poverty, underdevelopment and lack of equal opportunities as being among the root causes of6 human trafficking. Economic vulnerability may also include unemployment and lack of access to opportunities, which make people want to migrate in search of better conditions. 3. Social exclusion relates to a lack of access to social rights and prevents groups from receiving the benefits and protection to which all citizens should be entitled. Marginalization from social security derives from complex factors, including gender, ethnicity and the low status of groups within societies. This involves discrimination in education, employment practices, access to legal and medical services and access to information and social welfare. Social exclusion is particularly important when discussing how to prevent revictimization and retrafficking. Trafficked persons face considerable obstacles upon their return home, not the least of which can be the attitudes and biases within their own communities. 4. Social and cultural practices are sensitive to context and therefore must be considered with special caution so as to avoid generalization. For example, cultural practices such as arranged, early or forced marriages, and other practices such as temporary marriages, marriages by catalogue or mail-order brides and other forms of sexual exploitation, can all contribute to trafficking in persons. Further, in many societies, cultural norms affect the manner in which women are treated, making gender-based discrimination a contributing factor to women’s vulnerability to trafficking. In addition, women from certain societies who are trafficked into prostitution find it more difficult to reintegrate into their families and communities after being freed from exploitation. Many trafficked women may also have contracted HIV/AIDS or other sexually transmitted diseases, the reporting of which can be considered shameful in some societies.

5. Legal factors are manifested in the lack of access to the criminal justice system, which occurs either because the trafficked person is a foreigner or lacks access to legal representation, or the system itself does not offer an appropriate remedy. In addition, insecurity may be fostered by the double witness rule or the corroborative evidence rule (see page 34), as a result of which trafficked persons are not heard in court. Corruption exacerbates the insecurity. 6. In addition to economic, social and cultural factors, political instability, war and conflict may contribute to trafficking in persons. This is particularly the case in transitional societies where civil unrest, loss of national identity and political instability may create a favourable environment for organized crime, including trafficking in persons. In such cases, the disruption of traditional community life, along with its protective framework, and the resulting displacement of persons make people extremely vulnerable to exploitation. 7. Another major factor oiling the wheel of trafficking in the country is voodoo (juju). Insiders in the trafficking business say once arrangements for victims’ trips abroad are completed, traffickers seal the deal by taking the victims to shrines of voodoo priests for oath taking. There, victims are made to swear that they would never reveal the identities of their traffickers to anyone if arrested whether in the course of the journey or in the destination countries. A repented former trafficker confirmed that voodoo, known as juju in the Nigerian parlance, is playing a great but nauseating role in the human trafficking business. When traffickers are arrested in Nigeria, victims have often failed to show up in court to testify against them for fear that they would die if they violate the oaths they took. In administering the oaths, the source said traffickers usually collect the finger nails, menstrual blood and pubic hairs of the girls in preparing concoctions. NAPTIP’s Deputy Director of Prosecution and Legal Services, Mr. Abdulrahim Shaibu, said his agency had had difficulty prosecuting traffickers because “victims are afraid of juju and are hardly forthcoming.” 8. Last but not the least is one attractive factor- Demography. Victims of human trafficking are actually lured from their comfort zones to more technically advanced cities. These victims are deceived by their perpetrators that they live in outdated socially disadvantaged societies and exhibits a mediocre life style which is nothing compared to the flashy life style of the western world.

RECOMMENDED SOLUTIONS TO HUMAN TRAFFICKING * Government should ensure that the activities of NAPTIP are funded sufficiently, particularly for prosecuting trafficking offenders and providing adequate care for victims. * Increase investigations and prosecutions of labor trafficking offenses, and convictions and punishments of labor trafficking offenses; vigorously pursue trafficking investigations, prosecutions, and convictions and impose adequate sentences on convicted trafficking offenders, including imprisonment whenever appropriate. * Train police and immigration officials to identify trafficking victims among vulnerable populations, such as women in prostitution and young females traveling with non-family members. * Provide mandatory training to all NAPTIP shelter counselors, specifically addressing key trauma issues unique to trafficking victims; increase the provision of educational and vocational training services to victims at all government shelters. * Develop a formal system to track the number of victims repatriated from abroad, and upon repatriation ensure they are aware of available protective services; ensure NAPTIP productively interacts with and receives support from other government agencies that come in contact with trafficking issues. * Take proactive measures to investigate and prosecute government officials suspected of trafficking-related corruption and complicity in trafficking offenses. * Government should set up an international ‘reciprocal direct investment’ (RDI) scheme across nation. The RDI scheme can facilitate international competition, efficiency, trade liberalization, and division of labor by exchanging production base, capital and land across nations. It can therefore substantially facilitate the convergence of living quality across country without labour market liberalization. The global production and allocation efficiencies will be improved that generate substantial wealth increases to the country. * A modest effort to prevent human trafficking through campaigns to raise awareness and educate the public about the dangers of trafficking should be adopted by NAPTIP to initiate a Public Enlightenment Unit to conduct national and local programming through radio and print media in all regions of the country to raise awareness about trafficking, including warning about the use of fraudulent recruitment for jobs abroad as well as to sensitize vulnerable people, sharpen public awareness of trends and tricks traffickers used to lure victims, warn parents, and encourage community members to participate in efforts to prevent trafficking. CONCLUSION While we condemn human trafficking, we are of the strong belief that a demonstration of political will to diligently prosecute offenders would serve as deterrent to those engaged in the nefarious trade, irrespective of their social status. There is also a need for a sustained sensitization of Nigerians, especially in rural areas, on the dangers posed by ‘good Samaritans’ who offer better lives for children away from the watchful eyes of their parents and guardians. A culture where little children are expected to provide for, or supplement, their family upkeep should also be discouraged while the authorities must put in place guidelines on the hiring of domestic household staff through certified agencies.

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