The CLEEN Foundation, with support from the United Nations Women (UNWomen) and the Italian Government, has launched a novel project titled: ‘Preventing forced migration and trafficking of women and girls in Nigeria: Build resilience, promote sustainable development.’

The project specifically aims at enabling a gender-sensitive policy environment that would address forced migration and trafficking and increase gender-sensitive information and awareness in migration trafficking sites.

The project, according to the Foundation’s Executive Director, Dr Benson Olugbuo, also seeks to support and strengthen the gender-responsiveness of interventions by the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) and other relevant government agencies.

Under the project, CLEEN will be responsible for implementing key activities in Edo and Lagos States that contributes to enabling gender-sensitive policy environment that addresses forced migration and trafficking is in place, whose design and implementation is influenced by women and girl’s rights organisations in source migration trafficking sites.

It also intends to increased gender-sensitive information and awareness-raising in source migration-trafficking sites contribute to the prevention of women’s irregular migration and trafficking.

To this end, the Foundation has embarked on active collaborative engagement with various government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), including NAPTIP and law enforcement institutions such as the Nigeria Police and the Nigerian Immigration Service; civil society and community representatives in both project states. The intervention will involve the conduct of gender audit of protection services within existing shelters and safe homes and other services by front-line service providers. This will form the basis for the development of specialised tools and trainings to enhance gender-responsive service delivery for security, health and justice sector agencies and training for community-based women’s organisations to enhance their advocacy and communication capacities in the two project states.

During the inception meeting which took place online on Wednesday June 25, the It commended the activities of government agencies charged with the mandates towards the prevention of forced migration and trafficking of women and girls in Nigeria, prosecution of enablers and traffickers and enforcement of extant relevant laws.

It lamented that the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria, which has become the subject of global discourse, has also come with implications for human trafficking and forced migration as Nigeria continues to contribute the largest share of persons trafficked and or forcefully immigrated, noting that the country remains a source, transit and destination point on human trafficking.

The latest Global Slavery Index (2018) Report, CLEEN observed, ranks Nigeria as 32/167 of the countries with the highest number of slaves which stands at 1,386,000. Accordingly, it called on all critical stakeholders working to curb the rate of forced migration and human trafficking, to remember the plight of women and girls subjected to trafficking, as they remain a substantial number of victims of human trafficking and forced migration.

“While we commend the government for a number of interventions undertaken to address these concerns so far, we urge the Federal and state governments to show greater commitment in formulating more gender sensitive policies and establishing gender sensitive protection services for trafficked women and girls. CLEEN will continue to work collaboratively with key stakeholders in ensuring that the project outcomes are achieved.

It recommended that the Federal and State Governments should domesticate the VAPP Act, 2015 and the Child Right’s Act 2003 for greater protection of women and girls in Nigeria, improve coordination among law enforcement actors, including NAPTIP, the Nigerian Immigration Service and Police, embark on vigorous investigation and prosecution, convict traffickers and impose stringent sentences to serve as deterrent and support NAPTIP to achieve its mandate particularly in providing adequate victim care and expanding of protection shelters.

The CLEEN Foundation (formerly Centre for Law Enforcement Education in Nigeria) was established in 1998 as a leading non-governmental organisation to promote public safety, security, justice, research, and advocacy in Nigeria. It has Observer Status with the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights based in Banjul, The Gambia and was awarded the 2019 Human Rights Award by the National Human Rights Commission. It is currently the CSO representative on the Administration of Criminal Justice Monitoring Committee at the national level.