2007 Trafficking in Persons Report - Center for Women Policy Studies

Prosecution
The Government of Nigeria continued to combat
trafficking through modest law enforcement efforts
during the last year. Nigeria prohibits all forms of
trafficking through its 2003 Trafficking in Persons
Law Enforcement and Administration Act, which
was amended in 2005 to increase penalties for
traffickers, and its 2003 Child Rights Act. Prescribed
penalties of five years’ imprisonment for labor
trafficking, 10 years’ imprisonment for trafficking
children for forced begging or hawking, and a
maximum of life imprisonment for sex trafficking
are sufficiently stringent and commensurate with
penalties prescribed for rape. During the last year,
the government reported 81 trafficking investigations,
23 prosecutions, and three convictions.
Sentences imposed on traffickers were inadequate,
however. Two convicted traffickers received two
years’ imprisonment, while the third was sentenced
to only one year in prison. Two of the convictions
were for sex trafficking, while the third was for
child trafficking for forced begging. Responding
to reports of authorities issuing fraudulent travel
documentation, the government in September 2006
replaced its documentation staff and is prosecuting
the suspects for fraud.
Protection
The Government of Nigeria demonstrated steady
efforts to protect trafficking victims during the year.
NAPTIP continued to provide victims with shortterm
care in shelters in Lagos, Abuja, Benin City,
Sokoto, Kano and Uyo, assisting 352 victims during
the year. Although the government doubled its
funding for anti-trafficking efforts in the last year,
NAPTIP shelters are often short on food supplies
and provide insufficient victim reintegration assistance.
NAPTIP sometimes refers victims to UNICEF,
IOM, or NGOs for reintegration assistance. The
government encourages victims to assist in trafficking
investigations by providing foreign victims
with short-term residency and care and by routinely
requesting victims’ testimony against traffickers.
Nigeria provides a limited legal alternative to the
removal of foreign victims to countries where they
face hardship or retribution — short-term residency
that cannot be extended. Although victims are not
inappropriately incarcerated, fined, or penalized for
unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being
trafficked, the government places foreign victims in
shelters under guard until they are repatriated.
Prevention
The Government of Nigeria demonstrated solid
efforts to raise awareness about trafficking during
the reporting period. NAPTIP continued to host
quarterly trafficking stakeholder forums for government,
NGO, international organization and donor
representatives. The government continued to
raise awareness about trafficking through posters,
public forums, and radio and television spots. One
campaign, for example, included billboards outside
major airports and radio jingles. In 2006, Nigeria
developed a national action plan against trafficking,
which awaits presidential approval.
NORTH KOREA (Tier 3)
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
(D.P.R.K. or North Korea) is a source country
for men, women, and children trafficked for the
purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and
forced labor. Many North Koreans seeking to escape
the dire conditions in country attempt to leave by
crossing the border into Northeast China, where
tens of thousands of North Koreans may reside
illegally, more than half of whom are women.
The illegal status of North Koreans in the People’s
Republic of China (P.R.C.) and other Southeast
Asian countries increases their vulnerability to
trafficking schemes and sexual and physical abuse.
In the most common form of trafficking, North
Korean women and children who voluntarily cross
the border into P.R.C. are picked up by trafficking
rings and sold as brides to P.R.C. nationals, usually
of Korean ethnicity, or placed in forced labor. In
a less common form of trafficking, North Korean
women and girls are lured out of North Korea by
the promise of food, jobs, and freedom, only to be
forced into prostitution, marriage, or exploitative
labor arrangements once in P.R.C. The D.P.R.K.’s
system of political repression includes forced labor
in a network of prison camps, where an estimated
150,000 to 200,000 persons are incarcerated and
subjected to reeducation through labor by logging,
mining, and tending crops. Critics of the regime
and some North Koreans forcibly returned from
abroad may be subjected to hard labor in prison
camps operated by the government.
N O R T H K O R E A
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