"Nigeria: Seven years since Chibok, the government fails to protect children 2015 - "Boko Haram: 'For five kilometres, I kept standing on dead bodies'""
Is something akin to this anarchistic situation what the far right-wing, weak federal government terrorist groups in America want.
Published 23 hours ago
AFP
In our series of letters from African journalists, Mannir Dan Ali, former editor-in-chief of Nigeria's Daily Trust newspaper, says the shooting down of a military jet shows how organised crime is becoming more daring by the day.
Nigerians refer to them as bandits - a word that does not quite do justice to what are in fact networks of sophisticated criminals who operate across large swathes of northern-western and central Nigeria.
Gangs on motorbikes terrorise the region, stealing animals, kidnapping for ransom, killing anyone who dares confront them and taxing farmers - it's a huge money-making operation.
Over the last four years the security forces have not been able to get a handle on the situation, which millions of Nigerians feel is out of control.
Last week President Muhammadu Buhari inaugurated the Dutsinma-to-Tsaskiya road in his home state of Katsina but few people dare travel on it after countless attacks.
Kidnappers have been calling these parents at Bethel Baptist High School asking for food for their captive children AFP
Most top government officials, including security chiefs, take the train linking the capital, Abuja, to Kaduna because of frequent abductions .. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-50068625 .. on the road between the two cities.
A serving army general was recently killed on the main road from Abuja to central Kogi state and his sister, who had been travelling with him, was kidnapped.
This week, 13 military police were killed in an ambush in Zamfara state when at the same time at least 150 villagers were abducted.
At the moment at least 300 students are being held by kidnappers who seized them from their schools in Kaduna, Niger and Kebbi states at different times over the last two months - many taken in broad daylight.
VIDEO - Nigeria child abduction: Kidnappers demand millions for a child's life
Some are Islamic primary school students as young as five and most of them, if the kidnappers are to be believed, have fallen sick.
In all these cases, the gangs are asking for huge amounts of money to release the children - ransoms the parents cannot afford, while the authorities insist that they will neither pay ransoms nor negotiate with criminals.
The kidnappers, whose hideouts are in vast camps in forests, are brazen.
As they hold out for payment, they hassle parents with demands for bags of rice, beans and cooking oil to feed their captives.
Dozens of schools spread across at least five northern states have been closed by the authorities as they are unable to protect them.
Food prices spiral
This has not stopped the gangs, who have recently turned to targeting more high-profile figures such as a local emir and his family.
M Dan Ali
"Some of the gang members have been boasting of their alliance with Islamist Boko Haram militants ... allegations that have not been independently verified" Mannir Dan Ali Journalist
Hundreds of villages have been deserted after some of the most brutal and deadly attacks.
In some areas, the gangs dictate what the locals can do and levy taxes.
Such insecurity in one of the country's rich agricultural belts is clear for all to see.
Farming has been affected by the growing insecurity AFP
This year has already seen unprecedented rises in the prices of staple foods like maize, rice and beans that are grown there.
Now in the middle of the farming season huge tracts of farmland are inaccessible.
'Sophisticated know-how'
The one clear advantage - air power - that the authorities seemed to have over the criminals is now under threat.
Reports that a military jet had been shot down on Sunday by one of the gangs were at first flatly denied.
But when villagers in the area told reporters they had helped the pilot to escape to safety, the military issued a statement with a more positive spin - commending the "gallant pilot" who had come under "intense enemy fire" after a "successful" mission.
Flight Lt Abayomi Dairo (L) was helped by villagers to escape after his plane was shot down NAF
The authorities may have tried to downplay the incident but it shocked security analysts.
"We know the bandits have all those bazookas, rocket launchers… We didn't believe they have the technical know-how and capacity to use them," retired security official Mike Ejiofor told the Vanguard newspaper.
Some of the gang members have been boasting of their alliance with Islamist Boko Haram militants, who have waged a decade-long insurgency in north-eastern Nigeria and some of whom are now linked to the Islamic State group. Such allegations have not been independently verified.
However one bandit leader holding about 90 schoolchildren has told their parents that he will marry off the girls to his fighters and indoctrinate the boys to join his group - tactics used by Boko Haram to expand.
For one columnist, Boko Haram specialist Bulama Bukarti, these outrages take the issue to another level.
"It is time for Buhari to declare these beasts as the terrorists that they are and deploy all available resources to fight them. There can be no ifs, no buts, no equivocation."
Mr Ejiofor echoed this, saying: "The military should go all out for them and carry out sustained bombing of their enclaves."
The communities affected are at their wits' end over the growing boldness of the criminal gangs.
But with more calls for more military intervention, some may be looking nervously at the three states left devastated by Boko Haram - where millions are still living in overcrowded camps far from their old homes and livelihoods.
Some happy parents - Kidnappers in Nigeria release 28 schoolchildren, another 81 still held, says negotiator
Reuters
VIDEO
KADUNA, Nigeria, July 25 (Reuters) - Kidnappers who raided a boarding school in northern Nigeria earlier this month released 28 children on Sunday but another 81 remain in captivity, according to a pastor involved in the negotiations for their release.
The attack on the Bethel Baptist High School in the state of Kaduna was the 10th mass school kidnapping since December in northwest Nigeria, which authorities have attributed to criminal gangs seeking ransom payments.
A first batch of 28 children was released two days after the raid. Parents told Reuters that 180 students typically attend the school, and that pupils were in the process of sitting exams. read more
"Twenty-eight students were freed this morning," Reverend Ite Joseph Hayab told Reuters on phone. "Quite a number of the students before now escaped ... but 81 are still in captivity."
Nigerian authorities have attributed the kidnappings to what they call armed bandits seeking ransom payments.
The police and Kaduna state commissioner for internal security and home affairs were not immediately available for comment.
Radika Bivan, a parent whose daughter is among those kidnapped confirmed that 28 of them were released but said she did not see her child among them.
Kaduna authorities had ordered the closure of the school and 12 others in the area following the kidnap, without saying when they may reopen.
Schools have become targets for mass kidnappings for ransom in northern Nigeria by armed groups. Such kidnappings in Nigeria were first carried out by jihadist group Boko Haram, and later its offshoot Islamic State West Africa Province, but the tactic has now been adopted by other criminal gangs.
(This story corrects perpetrators of the school abductions in second paragraph to remove reference to Islamist militants) Reporting by Garba Muhammad Writing by Chijioke Ohuocha Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
"Nigeria: Seven years since Chibok, the government fails to protect children 2015 - "Boko Haram: 'For five kilometres, I kept standing on dead bodies'""
The trafficking of children in Nigeria for domestic service, sex work and forced surrogacy is rampant and lucrative. DW talks to two children about the horrors of their experiences.
Human trafficking of children remains a huge problem in Nigeria
Timipriye says her uncle's wife told her that they wanted to take her with them to Lagos, where she'd be taken care of and sent to university.
"With so many promises, I was very, very excited," she says, shyly, telling her story for the first time. "I immediately said I wanted to go with them."
At the time, Timipriye was 16 and living Nigeria's south, in a rural village about 350 kilometers (210 miles) from the bustling commercial capital, Lagos.
Her life at home was hard. Her parents struggled to provide enough food for Timipriye and her 10 siblings and were quick to agree to her move.
Broken promises
Timipriye falls silent — for a long, long time. When she starts talking again, her words tumble over each other in her effort to get them out.
What has happened since was nothing like what she was promised, she says.
Instead of attending school, she wakes now at 3 a.m., her days passing in a blur of domestic chores and babysitting her uncle's triplets.
She gobbles down her food to avoid getting in trouble for loafing — she fears the punishment. Once when she didn't get out of the car quickly enough, her aunt slammed the car door on her hand. Despite the excruciating pain in her fingers, that evening she still had to wash the triplets' clothes by hand.
To add to the horror of Timipriye's life in Lagos, she is sexually abused by her uncle. He barges in on her while she is bathing and enters her room late at night.
"Even when I try to stop it by locking my door inside before I sleep, it was a problem because he then starts treating me badly and then told me I shouldn't ever lock the door when I'm sleeping," Timipriye says.
"Every night before I sleep, I always cry and wet my pillow," she says, adding that she can't even ring her parents to tell them what is happening because she doesn't have a phone, or the money, to make a call.
Child trafficking rampant
Timipriye, who has been working for her uncle's family for four years now, is a victim of child trafficking.
That is when children and young people are tricked, forced or persuaded to leave their homes, and are then moved somewhere and exploited for someone else's gain.
In Nigeria, children make up the largest group of trafficking victims. They are trafficked for many reasons, from domestic service like Timipriye to sexual exploitation, being used as child soldiers, forced begging, organ harvesting and even forced surrogacy in "baby farms" where they are impregnated and made to give birth.
Trafficking is a long-running problem in Nigeria: Activists held this protest march in 2017
Of the people trafficked in Nigeria, the highest proportion are girls between the ages of 12 and 17.
The vast majority, like Timipriye, are transported within Nigeria.
Whether someone moves 10 kilometers from one community to another, or thousands of kilometers to another continent, the "common denominator" for human trafficking is "exploitation," says Daniel Atokolo, Nigeria's National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking In Persons.
Though international organizations largely agree that Nigeria has improved its efforts to tackle trafficking, the scope of the problem is still enormous.
Almost 1.4 million individuals were living in modern slavery in Nigeria in 2018, according to an estimate by the Walk Free Foundation .. https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/2019/data/country-data/nigeria/ , an international human rights group that publishes a global slavery index.
Tricked by a trusted adult
As is the case with Timipriye, it is often relatives, friends or trusted community members who either directly exploit trafficked children, or who procure the child for someone else.
Poverty is seen as the root cause of making children vulnerable to trafficking.
Recruiters are most likely to approach "the poorest and most vulnerable" and the "illiterate and psychologically weak" finds a study by the Pathfinders Justice Initiative .. https://pathfindersji.org/nigeria-human-trafficking-factsheet/ , an organization working with Nigerian trafficking survivors.
The failure to hold traffickers to account means that the few survivors who manage to escape often still live in fear of violence, or fear of their families being harmed, if their traffickers find them.
This is the case with Ivie, who was trafficked to Italy and forced to into sex work when she was 15 after a trusted family friend promised to take her to Europe and find her a job as a babysitter and a place at a school.
Her traffickers locked Ivie up with no food until she caved into their wishes. The International Organization for Migration estimates that 80% of the young Nigerian women who arrive in Italy are likely forced into prostitution as sex trafficking victims.
Ivie escaped after she told her story to a client who had commented that she was too young to be doing sex work. He connected her with Catholic nuns who helped her escape and eventually return to Nigeria.
Back at home, Ivie's nightmare isn't over. She lives in constant fear as the trafficking syndicate is hounding her and her parents, saying Ivie owes them large sums of money — in US dollars – that they spent on her travel expenses.
Ivie now can't live with her family nor sleep at home; she constantly moves from one place to the next to avoid being found by the trafficking ring.
No happy ending
Ivie does have a small spark of home in her life, though: Some good Samaritans are helping her learn a vocation and trying to find her place where she can stay permanently.
But she is still traumatized by her experience. Medical experts, such as Babatunde Fadipe, a psychiatrist at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, say people who have been victims of human trafficking can experience a wide range of psychological problems from anger to anxiety and depression.
As for Timipriye, she is too scared to leave her uncle's family. He is a lawyer and a powerful person, she says.
She met with DW in secret at a neighbor's house while her aunt and uncle were away, summoning up the courage to share her story in the hope of helping prevent other children from being trafficked.
She also has this message for parents: "Don't entrust your child to anybody to take care of them for you."
VIDEO 4:06 min - The Nigerian mafia tightens its grip in Italy
* Malawi struggles to curb human trafficking Endemic poverty makes Malawi easy pickings for traffickers. The pandemic and fallout from Russia's war on Ukraine has exacerbated the situation despite government efforts to curb human trafficking. https://www.dw.com/en/malawi-struggles-to-curb-human-trafficking/a-61760165
* Nigeria's political system favors old wealthy men Despite young people making up the majority of Nigeria's voters, the country's politicians are mostly old, wealthy and male. Such a system makes it harder for young people to enter politics. https://www.dw.com/en/nigerias-political-system-favors-old-wealthy-men/a-62002967
* Nigeria's hopeless fight against corruption Seven years after President Muhammadu Buhari promised to swiftly defeat corruption, Nigerians who are now worse off than they were in 2015 doubt that the president's anti-graft war will ever succeed. https://www.dw.com/en/nigerias-hopeless-fight-against-corruption/a-61946896
Date 29.07.2022
Author Tobore Ovuorie
Related Subjects Human Rights, Press Freedom
Keywords human trafficking, human rights, Africa, sex work, child trafficking
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