A mind-boggling 80% of Nigerian women and girls who come to Italy are there as a result of sex trafficking according to a Vatican news agency, Agenzia Fides.
According to one Monsignor Ignatius Ayau Kaigama who is the Archbishop of Jos and President of the Nigerian Bishops Conference “Hundreds of thousands of people fall victim to human trafficking every year in Africa alone,”
He said this at an international conference against human smuggling organized by Christian Organisations Against Trafficking in Human Beings, COATNET, and Catholic Charity Caritas, Abuja.
Kaigama continued, ”Of the overall number of victims, 79 percent are sexually exploited and the majority are women,”
He added: “The remaining 21 percent are coerced into forced labor, and the majority of these are men.
“In some parts of West Africa, the majority of victims are children under 18. This conference must find a way to put an end to child labor in all its forms.”
Kaigama wants drastic action taken as he 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.
“This, in light of recent reports that 80 percent of Nigerian girls that reach Italy, do so for reasons of sex trafficking.”