Participants at a one day conference have called on the federal government to view prostitution as violence against women and if done wou;d enable the country to reduce the rate of women trafficking in the country.
The stakeholders, who converged in Abuja, to seek ways to eliminate human tracking in the country, also stated called on the need for more collaboration to end the scourge in the country.
They made the call during a press conference organized by The Sisterhood is Global Institute and its Gloria Steinem Equality Fund to End Sex Trafficking in collaboration with Associazione Iroko Onlus.
Speaking at the event, the Director of Associazione Iroko Onlus, Esohe Aghatise, stated that women should not be seen as sex objects, stressing the need for change in negative attitude towards women by shunning all forms of negative stereotyping.
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Aghatise described trafficking against human as sex inequality that does not provide equal opportunity for women.
“The work we want to start today is to ensure that one day Nigeria would become the first African country that would sign into law in recognizing that prostitution is violence against women, the need to change the narrative and recognize the demand for sexual services as the origin of prostitution and sex trafficking and provide resources for these women to exit the sex industry”.
On her part, The Executive Director, Coalition Against Trafficking in Women International New York, Taina Bien-Aimè, lamented on the rising cases of human trafficking in Nigeria.
Ms. Bien-Aime urged the government to ensure that existing legal and institutional measures to protect individuals from human trafficking are adequately implemented
She also highlighted the importance of the movie “Òlòturé, a 2019 Nigerian crime drama film directed by Kenneth Gyang from a screenplay by Yinka Ogun and Craig Freimond in combating trafficking against women.
She said: “Òlòturé shows how sex trafficking and the exploitation prostitution develops and how it all functions”.
“The women and girls have needs, dreams and human rights not to be bought and sold in the multi billions of naira sex trade that includes prostitution. We’re not here only to celebrate Òlòturé but to also open new realities of sex trafficking and prostitution, we are also here admonish each of you to help end the this scourge especially in Nigeria”.
The Executive Director, while quoting the International Labour Organization (ILO), said: “every year millions of marginalized women and girls are trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation, which is a US $99 billion industry.”
“IMO estimates that there are at least 1.4 million victims if human trafficking, a majority of whom are women and girls.
The event was attended by the Ambassador of Sweden to Nigeria, Annika Hahn- England, Amb. of Argentina to Nigeria, Alejandro Herrero, Amb. of United States to Nigeria, Mary Beth Leonard , Amb. of Spain to Nigeria Juan Sell, among others.
Major highlights of the event was the screening of Òlòturé movie, a high-level panel discussion of sex trafficking, group photographs amongst others.
