HUMAN TRAFFICKING: BEYOND MUNICIPAL LAWS

ABSTRACT Human trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, harbouring, or receipt of persons by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, abduction, deception, or the abuse of power in a position, receiving of payment or benefits to achieve the consent of persons for the purpose of exploitation. This study examined the existing legislative frameworks that govern the prevention and protection of human trafficking. The paper observed that human trafficking is a global phenomenon that violates the victim's rights. The work also found that 80 percent of those trafficked are women, while more than half are children, and that this work has implemented the identification of men in the equation of trafficking victims, as not much consideration is given to them. According to the study, human trafficking includes not just sex and labour, but also organ harvesting. Furthermore, the report discovers that, in addition to transferring victims across borders, human trafficking occurs within Nigeria. This examines the necessity for better investigation and prosecution of human trafficking cases. Unfortunately, investigation and prosecution of trafficking in persons' cases in Nigeria have met a variety of problems, making accomplishment of the objectives of the purposefully organized procedures for combatting trafficking in persons in Nigeria, far from being wholly accomplished. The paper concluded that having attained a more effective legislation on human trafficking, with standard and efficient law enforcement agents and agencies sufficiently put in place, a review of legislations that provides for the protection against human trafficking, with particular respects to Chapter (II) 1999 Constitution (as amended 2023) with fifth alteration, being made justiciable so that the girl child can enjoy the rights to education and health without inhibition. Also the government should momentarily increase monitoring structures at the border and sack officials that aid in human trafficking amongst many others, then the challenges in investigating and prosecuting Trafficking in Persons' Cases in Nigeria should be overcome. The research used a doctrinal method and subsequently a comparative approach comparing selected jurisdictions with that of Nigeria, employing and focusing on primary sources like legislation, the Constitution, and law reports, as well as secondary sources like online sites, law journals, and publications