RELACIÓN ESCUELA-FAMILIA: ELEMENTOS CLAVES.

Instead of physical bonds, a battery of psychological tactics often restrain victims. Traffickers often outsmart the police and in some cases operate with the complicity of law enforcement.

unemployment, grinding poverty, rapid urbanization, a weak institutional framework, a breakdown of the extended family system and perverted value system, women’s and children’s vulnerability, low status of female child, corruption, global markets for sex, high demand for cheap and submissive child labour, growing neglect of shelter rights for children, youths desire for emancipation through migration, age-old traditions among others contribute to human trafficking.

Nejuvie (2008) advances that there are diverse reasons why many Nigerian children are vulnerable to trafficking, melding widespread poverty, large family size, urbanization with deteriorating public services, low literacy level and high school dropout rates. The demand for cheap commercial sex workers in countries of destinations strongly contributes to the growth of this phenomenon and the success of this criminal network. Parents with a large family often over burdened with the care of too many children are prone to the traffickers deceit in giving away some of their children to city residents or even strangers promising a better life for them.

Traffickers also exploit the trust of people rooted in a widespread, culturally accepted common practice in West Africa of placement and fostering as part of the extended family safety net. In some instances, desperately poor and uninformed parents willingly co-operate with the traffickers, giving away their children in exchange for a small fee. In the hands of unscrupulous guardians, these children are increasingly trafficked, and exploited for money.

The poor economic situation in Nigeria has led to unemployment and high rates of school dropout. These circumstances have created a large pool of inactive and unengaged children and adolescents who are much more vulnerable to trafficking than their peers who go to school. The motivation, especially of teenagers, to find work away from home is often driven by the increasing taste for material things.

Guest (2003) noted that “the case of lack of job, food, money, clothing, housing force Nigerian youths to head towards the Northern deserts enroute to Italy and policing our

borders is questionable” (p.5). Nigerian Women’s rights organizations reported that hundreds of Nigerian women and girls hoping to escape poverty and discrimination at home voluntarily migrated to Europe in response to job offers as domestic workers or waitresses.

Upon arrival, many found themselves trapped in forced prostitution, saddled with exorbitant debts, and forced to work under brutal conditions, forbidden to refuse any customer, women who dared to resist encountered harsh punishment from their employers, including physical assault. Some clients also sexually and physically attack the women, other clients rob them.

Their status as illegal migrants make the women keep silent to avoid deportation. Therefore, it can be said that poverty, illiteracy, poor family planning, rapid urbanization, lack of opportunities for parents to properly care for their children, sometimes occasioned by unemployment by parents, being too busy for their children or by broken homes lead to trafficking in persons.

Daily Champion (2010) avers that the reason Nigerians from the South East zone of the country can see 24,000 of their children being trafficked annually could be placed squarely at the door steps of those in authority at the local, state, and federal levels who are not providing good governance in all its ramifications. Changes in mentality that rapid urbanization and dislocation bring to homogenous societies where the cultural policy had been unity, and care for one another. It then was that no matter how many children an Igbo family produced or how indigent the family was, there will always be members of the extended family network to take over a handful of the children to train in school, skill or trade. This was a cultural mindset that has since been eroded. It is now survival of the fittest, family members no longer want to care but can care to exploit. The Guardian (2003) further observed that the incidence of child being taken abroad to work for peanuts has increased at an alarming rate. In a sense, it is a warped response to the level of poverty which has gradually but steadily crept into the fabric of the nation. Some parents have resolved to making wealth off their children by giving them out as child workers.

Mesce (2006) said that it is a high profit, low risk enterprise fueled by the globalization that connects much of the world and facilitates movement of people, goods and services across international borders, it is driven by a demand for cheap labour and an expanding sex industry that includes tourists seeking sex with children. Trafficking feeds upon the effects of poverty and the subordination of women. Lack of education and information, few income opportunities, and violence and discrimination provide a steady stream of vulnerable women and children. Okpalakunne (2006) laments that the country is characterized with unemployment, lack of social amenities, economic instability, devalued local currencies, low standard of living which have led to migration from the country to developed nations and migration from poor neighbouring countries facilitated by free movement in ECOWAS region.

Considering illiteracy as one of the factors that facilitate trafficking, Morka (in Okpalakunne, 2006) maintains that women with little or no education are vulnerable to being trafficked especially internal trafficking. In many parts of the country, children hardly go to school, they either rear cattle or work in farms to help their parents. The girls are forced into early marriages and not given the opportunity to attend at least secondary education. The illiterates and school dropouts cannot compete favourably with those that have acquired a certain level of education in getting employment in the scarce labour market. Olateru–Olagbegi (cited by Sotade, 2007) said that lack of access to education in some remote areas force parents to allow their children go and work in towns and cities. The WOCON boss cited the case of Ajegunle, a remote community in Ogun state, where they discovered that there were no primary schools and the nearest one was about six kilometers away. Because of the people’s poor economic status, they found it difficult to send their children to school. With the children being less occupied, giving them out to strangers as domestic helps therefore became a lucrative business.

Common trafficking victims according to Miyasaki (2011) include immigrants and the drug addicted, poor and abused. Young people with nowhere to live and no means of support also are vulnerable to exploitation. According to Okoro (2011) trafficked persons are majorly from poor background, predominantly from the rural areas. The trafficked persons are moved to cities for the purpose of forced domestic servitude, hazardous jobs, and commercial sex work as prostitute, street trading and hawking.

At this point, it is safe to say that the causes of the trafficking menace is not unconnected with poverty, desperation to escape violence, corruption, unemployment, illiteracy and ignorance, wickedness, security lapses and others. Dave-Odigie (2014.) noted that the reason has close linkage between poverty and widespread illiteracy as well as unsafe and uninformed migration. Poverty, unemployment, collapse of the protective environment as a result of the laxity of security agents in discharging their duties, ignorance of victims and desperation to be rich. Poverty has been identified as the principal driving force behind this trade and the most visible cause of vulnerability of women and children to trafficking in Nigeria.

According to Camara (in O’Donovan 1970), 20% of the world’s population possess 80 percent of the world’s resources: if so, the 20 percent who are keeping 80 percent in a situation which is often sub-human- are they or are they not responsible for the violence and hatred which are beginning to break out all over the world? Richer nations exploit the poorer nations. Often the rich are wealthy because they have oppressed the poor. According to UN Human Development Report (2005), Africa is the only part of the developing world where living standards have fallen over the decades. Taking Nigeria as an example, in 1992 some 41.8% of Nigeria’s population subsisted on less than one Dollar per household per day. By 1996, this number had grown to 46.3%, and by 1999, to 65%. UNICEF points out that Nigerian children born in 2005 have a life expectancy of 44years, and that of every 1000 children born, 100 die before their first birthday. Some 38% of children under five suffer

from stunted growth due to malnutrition or disease, only 48% of the population have access to safe drinking water. Some 43% of the Population are illiterates.

According to UN Nigerian Human Development (2005), poverty manifests itself in many ways; some of the most common are “prostitution, exposure to risk, corruption, robbery, street life, increased unemployment, living in squalor, shanties, shackles, high infant mortality, acute malnutrition, short life expectancy, human degradation, living in overcrowded and often poorly ventilated homes” (p.138). Nigerian populace is in lack, they are not benefitting from their rich natural resources; they need better education, food, violence-free society, honest government, and the need for Christians to live out their faith.

Lack of opportunities and unemployment, corruption and instability and (or) armed conflict contribute to human trafficking. Some parents may pay for their children to be taken to another country, in the hope that they will gain employment and a better life abroad.

Alternatively, children may be sold to traffickers by their parents, or kidnapped by such groups. Street children are particularly susceptible to becoming trafficking victims, as are children who have been stigmatized or suffer other forms of discrimination. In the Niger Delta, children who are discriminated against as witches are extremely at risk as they are usually rejected by their families and communities, and often live on the streets.

An ILO/IPEC reports (cited by Dave-Odigie, 2014) found out that 40 percent of Nigerians street children and hawkers are trafficked persons. These are children who are from poor deplorable backgrounds and so due to lack of opportunity at home and with or without their consent are trafficked. The contemporary society is bedeviled with a serious gap between the rich and the poor. Many parents claim that they cannot afford to keep their children in school because the economic survival of their households depends on the proceeds of the sales by these kids. Poverty has therefore been identified as the principal driving force behind this trade and the most visible cause for vulnerability of women and children to

human trafficking. For Oha (2012), poverty is the major root cause of child hawking while the quest for wealth and wickedness form the root cause of Child trafficking.

Another factor is the collapse of societal ethical values. In some communities in Nigeria, the wealthy are accorded honour, title and respect without bothering to find out the source of their wealth. This at times makes people engage in all sorts of crimes and vices to acquire wealth. Some parent are ready to handover their wards to such people for mentorship. The society classifies people into groups of the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ and some people out of desperation to belong to better social class or at least pull through the poverty line, fall into the racketeering bait. In the past, according to Oha (2012), the system of the society had operated three classes of people namely: The higher echelon, the middle class and the lower class of people. However, the present system has either by design or by accident tried to stamp out the middle class and allow only two classes to exist. The higher echelon is considerably few in population. They are people of affluence and influence who direct the nation’s resources at their whims and caprices. They own estates in almost all the states in Nigeria and overseas. Only a few in this class consider the plight of the lower class. Thus, the number who cares about the welfare of the poor and the common man is very few.

The second class referred to as the middle class constitute those who are struggling to find their feet on the ground and maintain the status quo, but who contend with the fact that many things have fallen apart. Some of the members of this class operate with extra consciousness in their spending or else risk joining the third class. The ownership of a house or landed property must be by prudent planning and budgeting while the training of children and wards to avoid their engagement in hawking is painstakingly done. Although sending their children to highly qualitative school seems to be their utmost desire, but too many things compete for their scarce resources and this places them on the scale of preference theory.

Too many of them battle daily with family stress, job demands, life hassles, energy crisis, car maintenance challenges and extended family problems.

The third class being the lower class lives in abject poverty. Many in this group move about with hurt of failures, disappointment, hunger crisis, unemployment crisis, and lack of access to quality medical care and delivery system. They constantly cry about injustice. To some, death is preferred to life. They curse themselves at every little provocation. This desperate group with large extended family system ignores completely the consequences of street hawking and exposing their wards to trafficking to get proceeds for feeding and family up-keep.

Due to high rate of poverty, many Nigerians of school age are not in school because they cannot afford it, or because they want to conquer poverty first. Thus those with minimal or no education to secure good jobs often fall easy prey to traffickers, who deceive them with tales of good jobs in the cities in the case of internal trafficking and greener pastures abroad for trafficking across borders. Even when some of those young people have some education, but are not able to get jobs, they feel that they could find jobs elsewhere and of course, this makes them very vulnerable to the manipulation of the traffickers who bank heavily on their misery.

Unemployment is a sensitive causative factor for human trafficking. The rate of unemployment is very high in Nigeria, leading to desperation of a lot of people. Most of the traffickers have advanced their schemes through the media and internet. They pay for advertisement on radio and television, informing the unemployed youth about the opportunity for jobs and university education overseas only to use them and make fortunes in brothels and factory sites within and outside Nigeria. What worries the media houses is the money for the advert and all the necessary attractive jingles will be done without any equivocation. Sappor (cited by Jet, 2014) said “it is so sad that Nigeria is a land where milk and honey flow, yet, there is so much poverty” (p.50).

Some scholars agree that reasons for the rise in cases of human trafficking include the vulnerability of women and children, the perceived low state of girl child, the high incidence

of corruption, as well as the high expanding global market for sex and cheap labour. Another school of thought blames it on the global economic recession, global warming resulting to climate change which have made some areas prone to floods and force many people to become refugees or relocate to other areas. Other cases include bad governance, technology, industrial growth, erosion of old family, religious, social, cultural and ethical values. These developed countries are often craze for cheap labour from developing countries.

In the areas where there is conflict or war, people are forced to migrate to safer places, usually urban centres. In some states in Nigeria like Ebonyi, Benue and some parts of Northern Nigeria where there are sporadic armed and violent communal conflicts, the youths are easily trafficked. Some young people are afraid of evil men and women in the village who make dangerous charms and poisons and to escape pre-mature death, they escape to city without plans.

Greed is a human trafficking causative factor. Investigations reveal that greed rather than poverty accounts more for human trafficking. According to Amujiri (2009), “some of the trafficked persons are from rich homes. Some rich parents encourage their daughter to go to Italy and prostitute and send them dollars” (p.47). Previously, people tried to protect their family name. They were afraid of doing anything that could tarnish or bring their family name to disrepute. What is important today is to make the money and the family will be respected. Many youths because of this materialistic tendency, and pressure from their peer groups, opt for immediate cash which they are not sure how or when they will succeed.

Some youths go to the streets to hawk or to beg, even in foreign countries.

Poor state of security is another factor that encourages human trafficking. There is a collapse of the protective environment as a result of the laxity of security agents in discharging their duties. Negligence on their part account for why most of the trafficked persons pass through immigration with fake visas which are undetected at the point they are checked. Negligence of duties may be attributed to poor salary for the security agents or sheer corruption which

has become endemic in Nigeria. Some victims confess that security agents are part of the deal as they connive with the traffickers and let them pass through check points at airports or land borders unchecked. According to Agbu (2003), the road and sea links or boundaries of Nigeria with her neighboring countries are extensive and are difficult and expensive to patrol effectively. As a result, citizens from other African countries who have intra-State conflict in their countries of origin use this porosity to flee across international borders to enter into the country as refugees and some of them end up doing menial jobs in Nigeria or fall prey to the traffickers who engage them negatively. Political instability in various African countries contribute to human trafficking.

Urbanization is one of the major sociological changes taking place in Africa at the end of the twentieth century. Young Nigerians are moving to the city in large numbers, hoping to escape the hard work of the farm and the predictable routines of village life. Life in the cities sounds far more exciting and interesting than life in the village. These young ones seeing their friends from the cities seemingly better off than they, want to go to the cities by every available means. They even go for the traffickers to be recruited. What they often find in the city afterwards is something different. O’Donovan (2000) infers that most cities are crowded, dirty, dangerous, impersonal and unfriendly. There are trash, disease, crime and a general lack of concern by people on the street for the welfare of one another. There are helpless handicapped people hoping for a handout. There is materialism, pride, lust, greed and selfish indifference instead of the gentle, supportive community most young people would have experienced at home. There is often hypocrisy, betrayal, dishonesty, deception, corruption and tribalism at the work place; if the young person is lucky to get a job. There is drug abuse and alcoholism, gangsterism, crime, strong temptation and impersonal selfish individualism in business and even in the church. Nights are filled with insecurity and the fear of robbery, rape and break-ins. Infact, the city falls far below the ideal that young persons imagined.

Even if they find jobs, their money seems to disappear overnight with the high costs of

housing, transportation, food, clothing, utilities and other expenses they never thought about in the village. With the urban challenges some allow themselves to be trafficked while others become agents of trafficking. Some are forced to become sales girls and prostitutes, servicing their boss and outsiders sexually to meet up with city bills. Some come back to take their friends in the village and introduce them to immoral and obnoxious businesses.

Poor or lack of family planning is another factor advanced by scholars on the cause of human trafficking. The size of the family and the number of children in it who require care and attention place a special demand on the family which if it becomes unbearable, may lead to human trafficking to ease the burden. Such increases the level of stress experienced in the family. Some are polygamous families who manufacture large numbers of children which they cannot cater for. Having unwanted baby can aggravate the situation. Some girls get unwanted pregnancy, adding such bastard child to the already stressed up family, thereby generating more problems. The result of all these can be the survival of the fittest, leading to mass poverty, and sending the children to presumed helpers who are actually into traffick in persons. Such distressed families are sure havens for human traffickers. Eze (2008) is of the view that weakness of our law is contributory to human trafficking. Lack of stringent punishment met on the culprits encourages traffickers.