Nigeria has launched an investigation after two immigration officials were arrested on suspicion of trying to traffick girls out of the country.
Nigeria has an ongoing problem of human trafficking which has seen many victims exploited in Libya’s slave markets and through forced sex work in Europe.
Reuters reports:
“We received information that two of our officers were arrested yesterday at Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, while trying to facilitate the trafficking of some underaged girls out of the country,” spokesman James Sunday said.
“The comptroller general of immigration has been briefed about this and we have started investigations,” he added.
The spokesman did not say how many girls were involved, nor did he give their ages or say where they were allegedly being taken.
The movement of people out of the country by criminal gangs, often by sea rather than air, has become a major problem for authorities in the west African country.
The British government says Nigeria is the fourth largest source country of victims who are trafficked to the country and that Nigerians make up the largest group of trafficking victims in Libya.
A report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) found that around 80 percent of Nigerian girls arriving by sea in Italy were likely victims of trafficking.
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