FAMILY AND SCHOOL CLIMATE AS PREDICTORS OF CHILDREN’S VULNERABILITY TO CHILD TRAFFICKING

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Background to the Study Human Trafficking is any action or transaction that transfers a person from one person or group of persons to another for remuneration or any other benefits. Gbadamosi (2006) describes human trafficking as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of person, by the means of threat, or use of force or other forms of coercion, or of abduction, fraud, or of deception, of abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of giving or receiving of payment or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purposes of exploitation. Exploitation includes any form of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of human organs. Traffickers may result in an illegal entry into a country and includes internal as well as external trafficking and displacement of the victim (International Bureau for Children’s Right (IBCR), 2011). Human trafficking involves the recruitment, transportation, transfer, receipt or harboring of persons for the purpose of exploitation (typically in the sex industry and for forced labour). Human Trafficking, as explained by International Organization for Migration (I.O.M) (2007), is trafficking of human beings which occurs when a migrant is illicitly recruited, kidnapped, sold and / or moved, either within national or across international borders. It went further to say that intermediaries (traffickers), during any part of the process, obtain economic or other profit by means of deception, coercion and for other forms of exploitation under conditions that violate the fundamental rights of migrants. In Nigeria, human trafficking may include domestic servitude, illegal and bonded labour, false adoption, sex tourism and entertainment, pornography, organized begging, organ harvesting and other criminal activities. Organ harvesting, sometimes referred to as organ laundering, involves the trafficking of humans for the purpose of selling their organs for money. Child trafficking is modern slavery for children under 18 years. It is a widespread phenomenon in the world in general and in developing countries like Nigeria in particular. Child trafficking, according to International Labour Organisation (ILO), (2004), is a modern form of slavery that involves displacing a child for the purpose of exploitation. This can be for exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or removal of internal organs. Children are trafficked globally and domestically for both labour and sex. UNICEF (2006) wrote that child labour takes forms and include domestic servitude, exploitation in agricultural services, and manufacturing industries, sexual exploitation, use of children in armed forces, drug trades and child begging. Child trafficking, according to Reuters and West (2003), is sex trafficking where commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, coercion or one in which the person induced to perform such acts has not attained 18years of age. Child trafficking in Nigeria is a demand-driven phenomenon – the existence of an international market for children in the labour and sex trade, coupled with an abundant supply of children from poor families with limited or no means for education in a cultural context that favours child fostering (ILO, 2002). In addition, ILO (2002) noted that parents’ unemployment, broken homes, displacement, peer influence and poor living standards drive children to trafficking. Children living in rural areas in Anambra State often lack access to quality education, good health and other basic needs which make their parents to entrust them into the hands of other family members who are more financially stable to help them.