Around the globe, 80,000 Nigerians are being held as sex slaves and forced laborers. This was confirmed by the country’s House of Representatives.
Chairman of the Committee on Diaspora, Tolu Akande-Sadipe, on Thursday, made known that a huge number of them are held in Mali, Lebanon, and the Middle East.
The Chairman condemned the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Labour and Employment for not acting swiftly on the situation.
She made known that the Foreign Affairs Ministry is looking to free Wafic Mohammed Hamza who is reportedly a Lebanese trafficker. She said that the Ministry‘s plan is masked behind diplomacy.
Hamza was nabbed by the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, NAPTIP, following the trafficking of 16-year-old Nigerian girls to Lebanon.
Ten of the girls have been sent back to the country with six of them still stranded in the Middle East country.
The sex trafficker is currently held in Ilorin, Kwara State, waiting for trial.
According to Akande-Sadipe, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is looking to release the trafficker despite some girls still stranded in his country.
She lamented over the dehumanization of nationals even in countries with a good relationship with Nigeria.
The NAPTIP disclosed that in 2019, an increasing number of Nigerian women in Mali, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Bahrain, Egypt, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates have complained about the terrible living conditions in these countries.