Between Prosecutors and Counsellors: State and Non-state Actors in the Rehabilitation of Victims of Human Trafficking in Nigeria

Abstract

Nigeria was the first African country to domesticate the United Nations’ Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children. Despite this stride, the result of the fight against human trafficking in Nigeria has not yielded commensurate fruits to justify the resources invested. Nigeria still accounts for one of the highest stock of victims of human trafficking from the subregion. This chapter examines the activities of two governmental agencies: Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) and National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons and Other Related Matters (NAPTIP) and two foremost non-governmental organizations involved in the rehabilitation of returnee trafficked victims (Women Trafficking and Child Labour Eradication Foundation (WOTCLEF) and IDIA Renaissance). Findings revealed that certain factors were responsible for the ineffectiveness of state interventions and policies in the management of human trafficking in Nigeria. Some of these include: inadequate synergies between governmental and non-governmental organizations; political patronage of the non-governmental organizations which makes them less effective as soon as their patrons lose political power; the combination of the functions of counselling and prosecution by NAPTIP, which makes them lose the trust of most victims and their families; and inadequacy of the existing laws to tackle contemporary challenges and innovations of human trafficking. The chapter suggests some policy propositions. These include creating clearly defined divisions of activities between governmental and non-governmental organizations and adopting a holistic policy response to human trafficking that balances a criminal justice approach with a human rights approach. The policy implementation also needs to be informed by social realities considering certain socio-cultural factors peculiar to the country.