Human trafficking is as old as history itself. Slavery was a byproduct of this demeaning and dehumanizing enterprise.
The United Nations sees human trafficking as a global scourge, and defines it as “the recruitment, transport, transfer harbouring, or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.”
Arewa as a region is undoubtedly going through a marked and obtrusive existential threat. Just when a headway is made in mollifying a particular menace, out of the numerous we had, then a fresh, or at least, a forgotten one emerges.
Child trafficking is generally understood, within the context of the violation of children’s fundamental rights. Such rights, include freedom of existence and choices. Again, child trafficking results from the failure to protect children and safeguard their rights.
Such rights, of an Arewa Child, has been grossly violated. Over three decades, nothern children were kidnapped, trafficked and sold by human merchants, identified as persons and individuals from Southeastern Nigeria.
For instance, in 2019, the Kano state police command arrested eight persons in connection with the trafficking of some northern children.The children, aged between two and 10 years, were kidnapped from various locations within the state capital and trafficked to Anambra State. The then Commissioner of Police, Ahmed Iliyasu, told reporters, while parading the suspects, that some of the children were kidnapped as far back as 2014. Some of them were forcibly converted to Christianity and their identities altered.
Similarly, in 2013, in Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital, a syndicate of human and especially child trafficking ring was busted by law enforcement agents. The syndicate consisted of 12 persons, three females and nine males. All culprits were from eastern Nigerian states of Anambra, Imo and Abia. Their modus operandi included inducement and waylaying of unsuspecting school age children on their way to or from school. On further interrogation, the culprits confessed to have been operating across the north central for decades, kidnaping and selling children to individuals who operate baby factories in Eastern Nigeria for amounts ranging from N50,000 to N500,000.
Only recently, the police in Kano paraded another syndicate, operating same criminal and demeaning enterprise, in the north East state of Bauchi. The Bauchi-Kano axis of evil route in this inhumane trade brings to mind the senseless desperation and quest for quick riches of some individuals.
The Kano state police command, had in late December rescued nine kidnapped nothern children, who were captured from Bauchi and brought to Kano for onward transit to Eastern Nigeria. Seven members of the gang confessed to have sold the children aged between 3-8 years for 450,000 each also had their identities changed to Igbo.
The haunting question, begging for answer is, why the obsession of the south east with this gory and inhuman trade? While many would adduce to the prevalence of get-rich-quick syndrome among societies and some persons of south east extraction, we must bear in mind some historical narratives. For instance, Nigeria’s steep economic decline of the 1920s and 1930s caused a dramatic increase in child pawning, stealing and dealing, especially in eastern Nigeria.
We cannot isolate or downplay the porosity between the institutions of pawnship, slavery, girl-child marriage, serfdom, clientelism and servanthood. The transformation of child pawning, a family strategy that used children’s labor as collateral for loans is highlighted as an institution that allowed slippages from ‘pawn’ to ‘slave’ as the procurement and post-slavery exploitation of children became an important local system of attaining child labor, in eastern Nigeria.
Many parents pawned children in order to pay colonial taxes. Men pawned girls to raise the bride price needed for their own marriages and child dealers stole and sold children to add to their personal wealth.
Many would argue colonialism had ended decades ago. But the residue is very much around, coupled with sheer cupidity and avarice, obviously fuelled the practice of kidnaping and trafficking minors by individuals from the south east.
As northerners, we must seek to provide answers to why our children are usually the “commodities” traded in this evil chain of trade. It brings to mind, the nature and level of social interaction, as well as intergroup relations between us and our guests. For a fact, an average northerner is accomodating, receptive and warm. Trust among northerners and being a brother’s keeper is a reason a child can move, play, and be sent on errands, regardless of age, without fear of being kidnapped.
It is with such atmosphere, we accepted, lived and interacted with our guests, from the south. Unfortunately, our guests mistook our courtesy for stupidity, to the point, our children became “commodities” of trade.
Federalization, urbanization, globalization, social interaction, and most importantly, democracy has lumped us together. The marriage of convenience, or inconvenience, has limited some responses, to which we could assert, in providing safeguards for our children. But, we must act. Child trafficking results from the failure to protect children and safeguard their rights. It is thus a failure towards all children. Additionally, the response to the various needs of each and every child should be the primary concern of the authorities.
Therefore, instead of a policymaking approach based on a patchwork of scattered and partial measures, we need effective and integrated public policies, particularly child and family policies, informed by rigorous and systematic research. Moreover, the proliferation of plans with goals insufficiently developed and evaluated should give way to a cohesive national anti-child trafficking approach.
The Child Rights Act 2003 is not sufficient, as a policy document. It has not prevented the poaching and kidnapping of northern children. The National Agency for the Prevention of Trafficking in Person, NAPTIP, obviously existed, in my opinion, only to prevent the movements of willing adults to Europe for prostitution. In the last decade, the agency hasn’t made a headline in preventing child trafficking across the nothern Nigeria to the South.
What the Northern parents need is a social reorientation, pertaining to parenting. The guest in our midst is invariably an enemy within and should be watched keenly. A social register must be opened in wards, communities and neighborhoods to identify individuals convicted of child trafficking. Individuals with questionable demeanor or character must be promptly reported to law enforcement agencies. This brings to mind, the call for reestablishment of the central and constitutional roles of community and traditional leaders. In the past, such leaders were the bulwark of their communities. Whenever a newling or strange face was sighted, he would be promptly reported to the leadership of such community.
Time has changed. Our attitudes towards the safeguard of our children must as well change. Government institutions alone, cannot provide safety network and programs, much as it hasn’t for decades, provided social amenities and services for our societies. Last time I checked, almost everyone is responsible for providing self with essential services, like power (buying generator and installing solar powered lights, building water boreholes, forming local security and ommunity vigilantes.
Same zeal and vigor with which we pursued the provisions of aforementioned services, is what we need to apply for formidable safeguards for our children. This monster of child trafficking and forceful conversions has been on for decades. The Igbo-lization of northern Nigeria children must be resisted by all means. I do not subscribe to conspiracy theories, but it looks more, like a premeditated idealogue hatched for long -term benefits by the perpetrators.
The worst hit, in this cycle of child trafficking and forceful conversions is Kano, being the epicenter of commerce and trade. Kano had for centuries played host to different nationalities, race and ethnicities. It became a haven for all kinds of characters. A major feature of a megacity, is unwittingly hosting the good, bad, and ugly. That said, the response by our traditional and political leaders, in respect of the theft and trafficking of our children, was not encouraging. Only HRH Alh.Aminu Ado Bayero, emir of Kano, in my opinion made headlines, calling for an end to poaching and trafficking of northern children. We must provide safeguards to protect our children against licentious human poachers.
Abdullahi D Mohammad is with the Department of Political Science and International Studies, at the Ahmadu Bello University-Zaria.