Human trafficking will increase - Top catholic priest

A senior priest of the Roman Catholic
Church, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, has
predicted an increase in human trafficking
as a result of the spreading poverty in
Nigeria occasioned by a slide in the
country’s economy.
There is growing poverty in Nigeria as a
result of the economy
Onaiyekan, who is the Archbishop of the
Abuja diocese of the church, warned federal
government about the current economic
challenges while speaking at the Caritas
conference on human trafficking within and
from Africa, in Abuja, the Vanguard reports.
According to him, the federal government
must immediately commence work to boost
the economy and reduce hunger in the
country by doing more than asking youths to
engage in agriculture.
He said trafficking in persons “is likely to
increase the number of frustrated people who
cannot make ends meet.
“You know by the time you finish university
and you are roaming the streets for three, four,
five and six years no job and you are
becoming 30 or 31 years of age with no
future, it is very difficult to sit down quietly.
“Maybe they (government) is telling people to
look for other ways of making a living, go to
farm but government will have to do a little bit
more to make it possible for young people to
go to farm or to do other things but to just sit
down doing nothing and rotting away is a little
bit frustrating. That is what I know.
“But, like I said, immigration to an unknown
destination is not the real answer. People say
that it can always be better up there.
“It is not true. It can be worse over there than
what you are facing here. At least here you
have no winter, you can sleep under the
bridge. You cannot sleep under the bridge
there. You will die of cold.”
In his own paper titled: ‘The sustainable
development goals and human trafficking in
Nigeria’, the report said the national director
of Caritas Nigeria, Reverend Father Evaristus
Bassey, called on governments at all levels
to provide free education for girls up to
university level.
Onaiyekan predicts a rise in human
trafficking in Nigeria
He argued that a properly educated woman
would not submit herself to be trafficked.
“The SDGs indicators for me provide
milestones for the state and other
stakeholders to use and examine society and
rebuild it with a purpose and seriousness that
would eliminate those structures that leave
some at the fringes, structures which John
Paul II called structures of sins, the after effect
of which Pope Francis called a throw away
culture.
“As this issue of trafficking has become a
global embarrassment for Nigeria, it is
important to target the key populations in this
respect and take measures that would stem
the tide of trafficking.
“Care givers of children especially women
should be targeted for full time housewife
status benefits; an assessment should also be
conducted of girls in these catchment areas
who should be monitored to complete
secondary education and university education,
or put into financial literacy and
entrepreneurship programs that would
guarantee starter packs for small businesses.
“Indeed free education for girls up to
university level should be adopted as a
national mitigating measure. A properly
educated woman would not submit herself to
be trafficked.
“An investment in education for girls would
not only promote Goal 4(education for all) but
Goal 5 (gender equality) and Goal10 (reduce
inequality) as well.
“Recovered assets should be ploughed into
the development of infrastructure, as poor
infrastructure and poor access to basic
services likely contributes to the great sense
of alienation which leads to human trafficking,”
he said.
Currently, the National Bureau of Statistics
(NBS) has put the new figure of unemployed
Nigerians at 4.58 million, but this is being
disputed by some Nigerians who believe that
the figure is much higher than that.
When broken down, an estimated 1.46
million Nigerians became unemployed in the
third quarter of 2015 while 518,102 became
unemployed in the fourth quarter of the
same year.


Source :naij.com
Edited by DANIEL IKECHUKWU EKWUNIFE