Recent report reveals that 80% of Nigerian girls and women in Italy are sold for prostitution

ABOUT 80% of Nigerian women and girls who arrive in Italy are sex trafficking victims according to a recent report by Vatican news agency Agenzia Fides which published a recent report showing that thousands of them are brought there for prostitution.

 

Quoting Monsignor Ignatius Ayau Kaigama, the Archbishop of Jos and president of the Nigerian Bishops Conference, the report said many of the females are lured to Italy with the hope of a better life. He quoted the figures at an international conference against human trafficking organised by Christian Organisations Against Trafficking in Human Beings and the Catholic Charity Caritas, in Abuja.

 

Monsignor Kaigama said: “Hundreds of thousands of people fall victim to human trafficking every year in Africa alone. Of the overall number of victims, 79% are sexually exploited and the majority are women.

 

“The remaining 21% are coerced into forced labour, and the majority of these are men. In some parts of West Africa, the majority of trafficking victims are children under 18, so this conference must find a way to put an end to child labour in all its forms.”

 

He also called on the federal government to declare human trafficking a national disgrace and to take urgent and long-lasting measures to address its root causes. Of late, thousands of young Nigerian girls have been sold into prostitution unknowingly, while others have had to accept to do in the hope of a better life.