WHAT used to be a popular view, albeit based on perfunctory observations, regarding the intensity of participation of Nigerian girls in sex hawking in Italy has just been lent an empirical validity by the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP). The agency recently lamented that about 60 per cent of the female sex hawkers in Italy were Nigerians. It described the situation as not only pathetic but “highly unacceptable.” In other words, there is no question about whether the population of Nigerian girls who are engaged in sex hawking in the European country is sizeable because it is indeed significantly so. This is awful and constitutes a monumental national embarrassment

By the NAPTIP disclosure, it is evident that many of the federal and state governments’ intervention schemes to curb trafficking in persons have been largely ineffective and inadequate. Many wives of the heads of subnational governments are also known to have pet projects whose objectives are partly woven around the curtailment of human trafficking but apparently those projects too have failed to achieve the desired results. This is really disappointing. A former first lady in Edo State was reputed for her trenchant efforts at curbing the spate of prostitution by girls from the state in foreign lands, and she seemed to have recorded a measure of success then. Perhaps as it is the usual but unhealthy practice among political officeholders, her successors failed to build on her template and achievements. The federal and state governments and the first ladies will need to step up the tempo and their commitment to the effective implementation of their interventions in order to rein in the sordid statistics from NAPTIP.

In addition, and certainly more significantly, governments at all tiers will need to work harder at turning the economy around. The economy has tottered for too long, limiting job opportunities, incomes and social welfare. If the economy is okay and accommodative of able and willing actors, no one will leave his or her natural base/habitat ostensibly to work as a housemaid, but only to end up as a prostitute in a foreign land. It is the lingering socioeconomic dislocation in the country that is pushing many people out of the country. A lot of young Nigerians are frustrated and some of them do many desperate things to survive. However, while it is true that the seemingly intractable socioeconomic challenges in the country pose a veritable temptation for people to take precipitate actions in order to survive, there are also the issues of weak moral fabric and warped value system that make some young people and adults alike to disregard ethical, moral and sometimes legal boundaries in their quest for survival.

Ordinarily, as difficult as the situation in the country is, there should still be a threshold of morality below which every decent person should not conduct his/her affairs. In this regard, critical stakeholders involved in character moulding and setting of standards for morals and values have important roles to play in swaying young people to embrace and toe the path of moral rectitude and acceptable values. And in the words of Mr. Orakwue Arinze, the director of Training and Manpower Development of NAPTIP, “unless all hands are put on deck to guide parents and the larger society on the dangers of human trafficking and violence against women, the lives of our younger female children will continue to be in danger.” It may also be useful to design an appropriate and more effective mechanism for apprehending and sanctioning adults who facilitate the travel of young girls from Nigeria to foreign lands with a promise of menial but decent jobs only to turn them to prostitutes. It would appear that not much has been done to punish and deter these irresponsible adults who make profit by toying with the future of the helpless girls, otherwise the population of Nigerian girls who are prostitutes in Italy should be declining rather than burgeoning.

It bears stressing nonetheless that appeals for societal value reorientation and moral rearmament as well as heavy sanction for adults who lure young girls into prostitution alone cannot significantly rein in the national embarrassment which prostitution of Nigerian girls in foreign lands represents. There is still the crucial need to officially attend to and fix the challenges of the poor economy. In other words, irrespective of official interventions aimed at curbing human trafficking and the strident advocacy for good manners and decency by the citizenry, people will still be trooping out of the country for greener pastures if the economy is not good and is unable to absorb willing and able economic actors.

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