CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study When the word slavery is mentioned people often think of shackles, plantations, ships and Africa. That type of slavery happened over 200 years ago and has since been replaced by a form called modern day slavery. “Two hundred years after the end of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, we have the obligation to fight a crime that has no place in the 21st century” (UNODC.org cited in Ola, 2009: 1). Trafficking in human beings is a process, with people being abducted or recruited in the country of origin, transferred through transit regions and then exploited in the country of destination (Touzenis, Kristina, 2010)). Historically it has taken many forms, but in the context of globalization, has acquired shocking new dimensions. According to UNESCO (2006), the current form of globalization has occasioned an upsurge in human trafficking, resulting in a “complex, multi-faceted phenomenon involving multiple stakeholders at the institutional and commercial level”. It is a demand-driven global business with a huge market for cheap labour and commercial sex confronting often insufficient or unexercised policy frameworks or trained personnel to prevent it. Nigeria has acquired a reputation for being one of the leading African countries in human trafficking with trans-border and internal trafficking. Trafficking of persons is the third largest crime after economic fraud and the drug trade. Decades of military regimes in Nigeria have led to the institutionalized violation of human rights and severe political, social and economic crises. In addition, the oil boom in the 1970s created opportunities for migration both inside and outside of the country. This created avenues for exploitation, for international trafficking in women and children, for forced labor and for prostitution (UNESCO, 2006). According to the UNESCO report: that Nigeria is a country of origin, transit and destination for human trafficking and that there is also evidence of internal trafficking. Destinations for trafficked Nigerians include the neighboring West African countries (Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Benin, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Gabon and Guinea), European countries (Italy, Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom), North Africa (Libya, Algeria and Morocco) and Middle Eastern countries (Saudi Arabia) (UNESCO, 2006: 12). Primarily women and girls, but also boys are trafficked for purposes of sexual exploitation, forced labour and organ harvesting. Poverty is the principle driving force behind this trade, propelling vulnerable people into the hands of traffickers, who belong to both small-scale, local enterprises with extensive criminal networks and to large scale multi-commodity businesses.