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Nigerian Centre for Gender Health and Human Rights

                              http://ncghhr.tripod.com/humanrights

THE NEWSLETTER

Vol.IV.No.2                                    December,2002

Promoting Health and Human Rights in West Africa                                       

 

 

PARENTS IN RIVERS RISK FIVE YEARS JAIL TERM

 

 

A FIVE-Year jail term, or N20,000 fine, or both now await parents in Rivers State who subject their female children to genital mutilation.

This is one of the penalties provided in the Female Circumcision (Abolition) Law 2001 passed overwhelmingly by members of the state House of Assembly, which has banned female genital mutilation. NCGHHR campaigned and helped by working with members of the States House of Assembly to draft the anti-female genital mutilation bill.

 

The law which became operational in December 2001, when it was assented to by Governor Peter Odili, also stipulates that parents who try to circumvent the law by taking their female children out of the state would equally be prosecuted while second time offenders would be jailed for 10 years without option of fine. The House also adopted the amendment to the bill by the House Committee on Women Affairs and Social Development which handled the committee stage headed by Mr. Paul Awoyesuku. The committee recommended that any person who is a victim of female circumcision when the law becomes operational shall have the liberty to prosecute any civil action for damages.

The law provided that any offender should face state prosecution, independent of any civil action the victim may contemplate when she grows up.

 

The Paul Awoyesuku-led seven-man committee which held public hearings on the bill in which members from various groups participated said they found that the practice of circumcision as a culture was repugnant to natural justice, equity and good conscience.

The committee equally pointed out that medically, the practice of circumcision encouraged the spread of AIDS through the use of unsterilised equipment/instruments and cause complexities during child birth.

Commenting on the passage of the bill, Mr. Johnson Amadi, NCGHHR director of programmes commended the members for their invaluable contributions at NCGHHR campaigns and during the debates.

The legislators voted 17 against one to pass the bill which one of them, Chief Monday Eleanya, vehemently objected to, saying it would be destructive to the traditional life of communities in the state.

 

 

Attitudes and Beliefs:
 Nigerians continue this practice out of adherence to a cultural dictate that uncircumcised women are promiscuous, unclean, unmarriageable, physically undesirable and/or potential health risks to themselves and their children, especially during childbirth. One traditional belief is that if a male childs head touches the clitoris during childbirth, the child will die.

 

Outreach:

There is no federal laws banning Female Genital Mutilation in Nigeria. NCGHHR and other opponents  rely on Section 34(1)(a) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that states, "no person shall be subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment," as the basis for banning the practice nationwide.
Much is being done by NCGHHR to combat this practice. NCGHHR holds meetings and programs in both urban and rural communities throughout the country to inform the public about this subject. It uses videos, booklets and the mass media to reach school age children. In conjunction with a number of Federal House of Representatives members, medical workers, attorneys and NGO representatives, NCGHHR organized a national policy symposium on FGM/FGC in May 2002. The symposium revealed that over the past decade both government ministries and NGOs have been active and mutually collaborative in studying how to end this practice.
The government has publicly opposed this practice. Government officials have voiced their support for the campaign against FGM/FGC. Both the Federal Health Ministry and the Federal Ministry of Womens Affairs support the nationwide study on this issue.

NCGHHR is focusing campaigns at the state and local government levels. NCGHHR is pursuing a state by state strategy to criminalize the practice in all 36 states. It first meets with the local government area Chairman about the harmful health effects of the practice. The Chairman is relied on to make contact with Council members, traditional rulers and other opinion leaders to discuss the problems associated with this practice and to work on alternative rites to satisfy cultural concerns. Only after consensus has been reached at this level, are all employed in the statewide campaign to ban the practice. NCGHHR expects the campaign to take at least five years to reach all 36 states.

NCGHHR is happy to announce that Ogun, Cross River, Osun, and Bayelsa states have also banned the practice in 2002.

 

The results from NCGHHR 2001/2002 Research Data on the Prevalence of Female Genital Mutilation in Nigeria shows the following prevalence of FGM in the following states in Nigeria. Abia (70 percent); Adamawa (72 percent); Akwa Ibom (65 percent); Anambra (60 percent); Bauchi (55 percent); Benue (95 percent); Borno (87 percent); Cross River (60 percent); Delta (90 percent); Edo (40 percent); Enugu (45 percent); Imo (40-50 percent, Type II); Jigawa (60-70 percent, Type IV); Kaduna (50-70 percent, Type IV); Katsina (95 percent); Kano (80 percent); Kebbi (100 percent); Kogi (25 percent); Kwara (60percent); Lagos (30 percent); Niger (40 percent); Ogun (35 percent); Ondo (98 percent); Osun (80-90 percent); Oyo (68); Plateau (58 percent); Rivers (70 percent); Sokoto (32 percent); Taraba (5 percent); Yobe (20 percent); Fct Abuja ( 7 percent).

 

 

AIDS IN NIGERIA: A MID-TERM REPORT

Nigeria is at the brink of a huge AIDS epidemic. For years, successive military regimes promoted an attitude of denial and claimed that there was no serious HIV/AIDS problem in the country. Now under a democratic dispensation, the word is getting out. A recent survey the Centre for Gender, Health and Human Rights, released to coincide with the World AIDS Day on December 1, 2001 indicates that HIV is spreading at the rate of one person per minute in Nigeria, and that over 25, 000 have been killed by the disease.

According to the country's Minister of Health, Timothy Menekaya, the survey has now shown that: "HIV-Aids is as much a city problem as it is a problem for small towns and villages. Indeed no part of [Nigeria] is unaffected." Experts and health officials hold government in deep suspicion.

By the end of December this year, more than half a million new infections will be recorded said the minister, acknowledging that the disease "is known to thrive on ignorance and apathy both at the private and official level". The government is not doing much to control this pandemic. For instance, lack of infrastructure remains a biting challenge in the war on AIDS. Thus, while 115 HIV testing/screening centers (in a country with a population of 120 million) were established across the country in 1987, today only a handful are still open albeit in a fitful state. Menakaya, however, deflected criticisms by CGHHR that the government is insincere about its commitment pledging more official assistance. He said the 2002 supplementary budget by the government of Olusegun Obasanjo "exceeds the total budgetary allocation to AIDS control in 1999, 2000 and 2001".

If Menakaya is right about his budgetary claims then some answers are pending on the status of the N730 million the former Head of State, Gen. Abdulsalam Abubakar gave in 1998 "to the management and control of HIV/AIDS". Abubakar told the annual conference of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) in Kano early November 1998 that the Federal Government planned to inject some N730 million into it AIDS funding plan. The Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) was to contribute N700 million while the government made a direct extra-budgetary allocation for the balance of N30 million. The truth is that past budgetary allocations always vanish into the cesspool of corrupt Nigerian officials.

This time around, "The present administration has identified the effective control of HIV/AIDS as one of the major priority health problems to be addressed," Menakaya said. The 2001 survey presents grim statistics that place the national average of HIV infection at 5,4%, up from a 1990 average of 1,8%. Only Cameroon, Nigeria's neighbor to the east, has a slightly higher figure of 5,5% prevalence rate. The HIV infection rate in Nigeria's other neighbors; Benin currently stands at 2,8%, Chad 2,7% and Niger 2,0%, respectively.

HIV prevalence in pregnant women ranged from 0,5% to 21%, with an average prevalence of 5,4%. In 300 samples collected in each of the two sites chosen in Nigeria's 36 states and the Federal capital Abuja, the north central zone, in which Abuja is situated, recorded the worst HIV prevalence average rate of 7%. Garki, a suburb of Abuja, recorded 8%. The northwest has the lowest prevalence of 3,2%.

 

By 2010, Nigeria will have 2.5 million orphans as a result of AIDS

In Lagos, the country's commercial capital and home to several red light districts, with a population of about 10-million, the average prevalence is 6,7%. The survey says women in their 20s have the highest rate of HIV infection. "HIV prevalence in the 20-24 age group ranged from 4,2% in the south-west zone to 9,7% in the north central zone." Young adults, aged between 15-19, are similarly affected, with HIV prevalence ranging from 2,8% in the northeast zone to 8,4% in the north central zone.

Based on the 2001 survey, it is estimated that currently 5,8-million adult Nigerians aged 15-49 years are infected and at that current level of infection, 1 in every 20 Nigerian adult carries the HIV virus. In 10 years from now, the fatality from the disease will surpass the total deaths from the 1967-70 Nigerian Civil War where more than 2 million people where killed.

Report By NCGHHR Press Unit, additional report by Ayodele Lawal and Yinka Akinmoladun

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NCGHHR VOWS TO SAVE AMINA LAWAL FROM DEATH BY STONING

On March 22, 2002 Amina Lawal, a 30 year-old Muslim woman, was sentenced to be stoned to death by a Shari'ah court at Bakori in Katsina State in northern Nigeria. Amina allegedly confessed to having had a child while divorced. Pregnancy outside of marriage constitutes sufficient evidence for a woman to be convicted of adultery according to the new Shari'ah-based penal code for Muslims, introduced in Katsina State. The man named as the father of her baby girl reportedly denied having sex with her and his confession was enough for the charges against him to be discontinued. Amina did not have a lawyer during her first trial, when the judgment was passed. Following this she filed an appeal against her sentence with the help of a lawyer hired by a pool of Nigerian human rights and women's rights organizations (Centre for Gender Health and Human Rights, Civil Liberty Organization, Constitutional Rights Projects, Women in Nigeria, Access to Justice and CAHTSEC)

Her first appeal was before the Shari'ah Court of Appeal in Funtua, Katsina State. It was set for May 27, 2002 but adjourned twice before being heard on 8 July. During the hearing the prosecutor urged the court to maintain the death sentence, passed by the Shari'ah court of Bakori. On August 19, Aminas first appeal was denied. Her second appeal was also denied at the end of September. The thirty-day period for her to file her appeal to the Federal Court of Appeal expired at the end of the first week of November. Following that and if necessary, she could and would appeal to necessary to the Supreme Court in Abuja, the nations capital.

NCGHHR has declared Nobody will ever be stoned as a result of sharia law. NCGHHR and the coalition of Nigerian human rights groups will not stand by to let any citizen of this country be dehumanized or slaughtered by a Sharia law, a repugnant religious law.  If islamic courts in the northern states would not be forced to change their laws, the federal courts would overturn judgments on appeal.

Nigerian northern states (49 percent of Nigerias population) are predominantly Muslims. (Northern Nigeria Christians are 30 percent, Muslims 70%).

Nigerian southern states (with 51 percent of Nigerias population) are predominantly Christians. (Southern Nigeria Christians are 94%, traditional religion and Muslims 6%).

 The introduction of Islamic law that inspired bitter fighting between Christians and Muslims in northern Nigeria (Kaduna and Kano) appears to be politically motivated by former military officers that have lost power since the election of a democratic Christian president in 1999. Many Nigerians believe that military officers President Olusegun Obasanjo retired from the military shortly after he took office in May 1999, are behind the Sharia conflict.

 

 

RECENT CONVICTIONS AGAINST WOMEN UNDER SHARIA LAW IN NORTHERN NIGERIA

2000-NOV: Attine Tanko, 18, is found guilty of having pre-marital sex out of wedlock. She was discovered to be pregnant. Her sentence of 100 lashes was deferred for up to two years after the birth, so that she could breastfeed her baby. Her boyfriend, 23, was flogged 100 times and given jail time.

2001-SEP: A teenage single mother, Bariya Ibrahim Magazu claimed at trial that she was raped by three men. The court assumed that she was guilty, because she  could not prove that her father pressured her to engage in sexual activity with the men. She was found guilty of two offenses: having pre-marital sex, and bringing false charges against the men that she claimed were responsible. Her sentence was 180 lashes.  When nongovernmental groups ramped up pressure to free the girl, the government immediately carried out the sentence, ignoring a promised appeal process. The local authorities said they wanted to put an end to the controversy.

2001-OCT: Safiya Hussaini Tungar-Tudu, a 30-year-old pregnant woman, had asked a Sharia court in Sokoto state to force a man that she alleged had raped her, to pay for her daughter's naming ceremony. The court refused, and then charged her with engaging in sexual intercourse outside of marriage. She was sentenced to be stoned to death. The man that she allegedly had sex with was freed by the court for lack of evidence. She successfully appealed the conviction. An appeal judge overturned her conviction, stating that there were very serious errors in her arrest and trial. She had not been given any legal representation, and the court had failed to establish the basic facts of the case. Above all, the alleged act of adultery had taken place before the Sharia law was implemented in the state. She was freed, and planned to remarry her former husband.

The governor of Sokoto, Attahiru Bafarawa, "attacked the European Union and women's rights groups for criticising the Islamic court that sentenced her. He said he had received more than 500 letters from interest groups and individuals protesting against the conviction." Bafarawa said: "Unfortunately, most of the human rights groups were not patient enough to allow justice to take its course in the case of Safiya. Instead, they chose to be putting pressure on the executive arm of the government to interfere with the course of justice."

2002-MARCH: Safiya Hussaini, 33, was convicted of adultery. She was sentenced to be buried up to her neck in sand and to be stoned to death. However, her sentence was deferred until her 13-month-old daughter has finished nursing. She appealed her conviction. Her cousin, a Mr. Abubakar allegedly confessed to police that he had sex with her three times. However, the judge dismissed the testimony of the three policemen who witnessed Abubakar's confession, because a minimum of four witnesses are required under Sharia law. Hussaini's lawyers claimed that she also could not be convicted because of the four witness rule. The prosecution argued that witnesses were not required in her case; adultery had obviously taken place because she had become pregnant. Her defense team finally argued that, under Islamic law, the interval between conception and birth can be up to seven years! Only two years previous to the birth of her daughter, she was still married to her husband. The lawyers argued that her husband could possibly have been the father. Commenting on the conviction, Aliyu Abubakar Sanyinna, the attorney general of Sokoto State, said: "Society is injured by her act. The danger is that it will teach other women to do the same thing." Mansur Ibrahim Said, Dean of the Law Faculty at Dakar University in Sokoto said that adultery is "an abomination abhorred by God and society because of the example it gives and because it creates bastards to be rejected by society."

The appeals court later reversed the lower court conviction. They ruled that the alleged act had taken place before Sharia law was activated in the province, and adultery became a criminal offence. There was strong international interest in her case. The European Union, the parliament of Italy and CGHHR and several non-governmental organizations, appealed for Safiya to be spared.

2002-MARCH:  A woman, Amina Lawal Kurami, from the small village of Kurami in Katsina in norther Nigeria was sentenced to death for adultery. The sentence was delayed for eight months (one source said 2 years) until she has finished breast feeding her infant. Nigerian Justice Minister, Kanu Agabi, declared this and other Sharia punishments discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional. This is the first time that the national government has made its position clear. She appealed the conviction, on the basis that the offence occurred before Sharia law came into effect. Her lawyers also claimed that she had no legal representation in her original court trial before a village court. The appeal was rejected by the Islamic High Court in Funtua in Katsina state. Dozens of spectators cheered and shouted "God is great". Her execution will be delayed until at least 2004-JAN until her daughter has finished breastfeeding. The federal government is planning to help Kurami appeal her sentence to the Nigerian Supreme Court. This case may igniting a major legal battle between the state and federal governments.

2002- APRIL: A woman, Adama Unusua, 19, was sentenced to 100 lashes by a Bauchi court, for engaging in sexual intercourse with her fiancé. She was pregnant at the time of the trial.

2002-AUG-25:  The Upper Sharia court in the northern state of Niger has sentenced two people to be stoned to death. Ahmadu Ibrahim, 32, and his lover Fatima Usman had confessed to pre-marital sex. They have 30 days in which to appeal the sentence.

 

 

ONLY WOMEN HAVE BEEN CHARGED WITH ADULTERY

Nigeria's northern Muslims have long used Islamic courts for family law, but it was only in 2000, as decades of military rule yielded to a civilian regime, that states began introducing religious penal codes. While many in Nigeria's Christian and animist southern half are wary of the law, Sharia is extremely popular in the Muslim north, where it is seen as a symbol of religious identity in this oil-rich--yet poor, populous and fractured--country.

Since the first governor introduced the Islamic laws, one out of three states has adopted the Sharia criminal code, usually in response to public pressure.

"Islam envisages a community that is morally, religiously and ethically a sound one," said Mansur Ibrahim Sa'id, one of the drafters of the criminal code in Huseini's home state of Sokoto and the dean of the faculty of law at the state's Usmanu Danfodiyo University. Crimes of drinking, fornication and adultery carry stiff penalties because they degrade the moral environment, potentially leading others along similar paths, he claimed.

Because adultery is one of the more serious crimes under Nigeria's brand of Islamic law, it carries an unusually high standard of proof. In the absence of a confession, which may be retracted up until the time of execution, four reliable witnesses must testify to having witnessed penetration of a woman. The only other allowable evidence, pregnancy, requires the woman to prove extenuating circumstances. A rape victim must prove she was attacked and may be subject to harsh punishments for defamation if she cannot.

While in theory this high burden of proof protects both men and women from baseless accusations, the application of the law has prompted charges of gender bias. Since Sokoto introduced Sharia law in 2000, eight women have been charged with adultery--all because they were pregnant.

Thus far, Huseini and two others have been declared guilty of adultery, other pregnant women have been convicted of the lesser crime of fornication, or sex before marriage, and sentenced to one year in prison. Women in other states have also been found guilty and lashed.

Though men in northern Nigeria readily brag about their mistresses, not a single one has been charged with adultery. At the time of this report, the sharia offence ofr adultery and fornication are frequent, even among Islamic religious leaders. They prosecute some women offenders in order to catch the government attention and for some other political reasons.

 

 

CHILD LABOUR

Sad tales of young children recruited from northern area of Cross River State for work in south-western states.

PATRICK ODAH, 56, a farmer in Ajemole community in Yala local government area of Cross River State in January last year, gave out his 16-year-old son, Akobi, to a man who promised to help him find a job in a factory in Lagos. Unknown to him, the man was involved in the illegal business of recruiting teenagers for work. Akobi has never returned home. No one knows where he is.

Akobis master reportedly handed him over to one man simply identified as Alhaji at Ile-Ife where he was to serve as a house help. After an agreement was reached between Alhaji and Akobis master, (the agent), an initial part payment was given to the merchant. He was to receive the balance of the money two weeks later. But when he went to Alhajis residence he found that the latter had moved out of the area to an unknown destination. It dawned on the agent that he had played into a wrong hand. He reportedly alerted one of his friends who joined him to look for Alhaji and his employee. It was during the search that the agent was told that Alhaji was wanted for alleged ritual murder.

Odah told NCGHHR at his residence: I was deceived to cause myself everlasting pains. I do not know if the boy is alive anywhere.

In March 2001, a related incident occurred in Ogoja, also in Cross River State, when a lorry-load of teenagers travelling to the western part of the country was involved in an accident in which about 32 died. The children came mainly from Yala, Echumoga, Yache, Alooda and Okpoma communities in the northern part Cross River State. It was later found that the children had been recruited for child labour and were being taken to the south-western part of the country where they work on cocoa farms.

Authorities aware of trade in child labour

Daniel P. Ugbama, member, Cross River State house of assembly, representing Yala II constituency told CGHHR February 12 in a telephone interview that the house was aware of young boys and girls being taken to the south-western states for child labour. He said a motion sponsored by him on the matter was passed by the house two years ago. The motion called on the state government to stop the illicit business and create job opportunities for the youths. He explained that the state government responded promptly by establishing agricultural projects in some parts of the state and engaged youths in the affected areas in the projects. But the projects were discontinued because of under-funding.

Christian Ekiri, vice-chairman of Yala local government council told NCGHHR that Matthew Ojugbo, chairman of the council recently intercepted a lorry-load of children on their way to the south-west for child labour. He said most of them claimed they had no money to go to school. Ekiri said that some of the boys were now being sponsored in secondary school by the chairman.

Omagu Ogblega, a village head in the area told CGHHR that recruitment for child labour was three decades old. He said they made several efforts through community development associations, groups and individuals to stop the business but failed because most of the children and their parents complained of poverty. Each time we try to stop them, they would ask us to provide an alternative means of livelihood for them as well as funds to go to school, Ogblega said.

Not a slave trade?

One of the agents in the business who did not want his name mentioned told CGHHR that the business was not slave trade. He said majority of the children willingly accepted to go to the south-west to work, and that they were paid at the end of the year for their labour. Many of them help their parents when they return home with the money they earn. That is why some parents willingly give out their children, he explained.

But Cyprian Ogabor, an indigene of the area said some of the children were deceived into believing that they were being taken to work in factories. He said the business which flourished between January and March every year, had now spread to almost all the local governments in the central and northern senatorial districts of the state. At least two lorry-loads of child labourers leave Okuku every week to the south-western states for child labour, he said.

 

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CHILD SLAVERY THRIVING IN TOGO AND BENIN COAST OF WEST AFRICA

 

Children as young as seven are being sold into organised slavery in the former French colonies of Benin and Togo of West Africa, in many cases by their own parents, according to a disturbing new research by UNICEF. The traffic in child slaves from impoverished Benin and Togo to oil-rich Nigeria and Gabon in central Africa is highly organised, lucrative and on the increase, witness testimony gathered by the British charity Anti-Slavery International shows. Most of the slaves are young girls, the children of impoverish and polygamous parents. Girls are in great demand for work as domestics and market traders, but frequently end up in prostitution or sexual slavery, often with the co-operation of their families.

 

Yolande is 12 years old. Sitting at a stall outside a smart hypermarket in Libreville, the capital of Gabon, she says she has been a slave for three years. She gets up at 4am to prepare food, then works the whole day selling it by the road. Asked how much she makes her replied: "I don't know. Maman counts it." Maman is not her real mother, but the slave owner who brought her from her village in Benin. Maman has several slaves like Yolande. A child street seller in Libreville can earn £40 a month; five or six children will make Maman a tidy living.

 

A Benin aid agency, Enfants Solidaires d'Afriques ET du Monde (ESAM) runs transit camps for rescued slave children. Many are traumatised; girls who have often been made to work as domestic servants or street sellers by day, and forced into prostitution at night. Esma's director, Norbert Fanou-Akom, explained: "It's an organised crime. A trafficking chain serves the people who profit directly: people who need kids in Gabon. "Children are taken across the borders en masse and are forced to work beyond their capacity and the owners profit from their work." The report by Anti-Slavery International describes how children are piled 20 or 30 deep into tiny fishing boats, sometimes without food or water, for a journey that can last weeks. Those who die are simply tossed overboard. Others travel overland: the journey can last months, with working stopovers in Nigeria and Cameroon, before children finally arrive in Gabon.

 

In the remote villages of Benin, which are rich recruiting grounds for the traffickers, children with distended stomachs scrabble in the dust. The village elders gather under the mango tree to shake their heads about the problem.

On         Akeem 13-year-old boy worked for two years as a slave. At the end of that time, he received a bicycle and was allowed to return to his village.

He says it was not worth the hardship and physical punishment he endured. But the younger children cluster around, tempted by what they see as his vast wealth. "I tell them, 'don't go with the traffickers. You'll suffer like I did'," he said, "But they only reply 'You went and you came back with a bicycle'."

 

It is easy to spot the slave traffickers in the villages - they are the ones with the smart houses. There is little other opportunity to make money. A boy who earned a bicycle as a slave might be offered a motorbike or cash to build a house if he recruits more children. A trafficker explained how the bosses move up the ladder from victims to abusers: "The bosses are local people, people who were once taken to be slaves, like I was. Your eyes are opened. You want to profit too. You say: I was abused, I'll do the same as was done to me." The cycle of abuse may help to explain the sickening level of brutality in the trade.

 

At the age of 14, Maimouna Traore was lured from her village in Togo by a woman who offered her work in Gabon. But she was part of a gang of traffickers. The journey to Gabon took seven months in total, with a stopover in Lomé during which she was starved until she agreed to become a prostitute. When she arrived in Gabon, she gave birth to a baby. "I begged the traffickers to send me and the baby back to my village. My parents would pay the cost of transportation. But they refused," she said. One of the traffickers told her they were going to kill her baby. "I thought it was a joke," she said. "But two weeks later the woman trafficker told me to put the baby to bed and sent me on an errand. When I returned, she told me to pick up the baby and give it a bath. It was stiff. Afterwards, the talk in the neighbourhood was that the traffickers had killed it. Three days later they sent me back to work."

 

People of the neighbourhood point out the house of the woman who enslaved Maimouna. She has other slave children now. In Gabon, the traffickers have the protection of corrupt police officials. For all the international concern, the people who deal in slaves are untouchable.

NCGHHR is specifically calling on West African governments to:

  • Make combating trafficking a priority and put the protection of the trafficked person at the centre of any anti-trafficking policy.
  • Sign and ratify the United Nations Protocol on Trafficking in Persons (2000) and the UN Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers (1990).
  • To active investigate and prosecute of traffickers.
  • Fund a specialized agencies to provide support and assistance to victims of trafficking, including appropriate accommodation, medical, psychological and legal assistance
  • Ensure all victims who are at risk of being attacked or trafficked again can stay in the country to which they have been trafficked
  • Ensure all anti-trafficking efforts are non-discriminatory and do not adversely affect other vulnerable groups like refugees or migrants.
  • Rehabilitate trafficking victims.

NEWSLETTER