Interpol rescues 216 child-slaves in West African markets

• As 1.4m slaves live in Nigeria

Interpol on Wednesday revealed that the Police rescued 216 human trafficking victims, mainly children, traded for forced labour and prostitution in a major operation in Benin Republic and Nigeria, the West African sub-region.

National Daily learned that, said the global police organisation, which coordinated the raids in early April, had disclosed that Operation Epervier II deployed 100 police officers across the two countries who rescued 157 child slaves.

Interpol in its classification narrated that many of the children were working in markets, peddling goods, carrying heavy loads or fetching water, while others worked as housemaids or were forced into prostitution. It was identified that among the minors rescued, 36 were boys and 121 were girls.

Interpol’s Director of Organised and Emerging Crime, Paul Stanfield, had said that investigations are underway to dismantle the crime networks active in Benin and Nigeria, which are source, transit and destination countries for human trafficking.

“This is about organised crime groups who are motivated by money,” Stanfield was indicated to have told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“It is challenging (to stop them) in the region because of lack of resources,” he said, adding that countries are nonetheless becoming better equipped and more prepared.

Police arrested 47 suspected traffickers and seized vehicles, cash, phones and computers in the operation, which targeted markets in the countries’ capitals as well as airports, seaports and border areas, Interpol had said.

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The children rescued were between the ages of 11 and 16 and came from Benin, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria and Togo.

The youngest was a boy forced to smuggle heavy goods such as bags of rice across the Benin-Nigeria border, Interpol said.

Most were subject to beatings and abuse, including death threats and warnings they would never see their parents again. They are now in the care of national agencies or charities, and in some cases returned to their parents.

It was indicated that about 1.4 million people, or 0.8 per cent of the population, are estimated to live as slaves in Nigeria, according to the 2018 Global Slavery Index published by human rights group Walk Free Foundation. Benin has an estimated 58,000 slaves out of a population of 11 million.

“These crimes can only be tackled collectively and through inter agency cooperation,” said Dominic Asogwa, Comptroller of Nigeria’s Immigration Service in the Seme border region, in a statement.

Interpol will continue working to identify hot spots for modern slavery in West Africa with a focus on mobilizing countries to address the issue themselves, Stanfield said.

“I think we’ll be here for the long-term, but we don’t want to be in charge of leading it,” he said.