Human Trafficking

Nkasi Wodu, a New Voices Fellow at the Aspen Institute, is a lawyer, peacebuilding practitioner, and development expert based in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. The Nigerian minister of defense recently enjoined Nigerians to take up arms to defend themselves against marauding bandits in their communities. The minister’s statement aligns with the grim reality that Nigeria has a serious internal security problem—and nobody knows exactly how to solve it. Nigeria has experienced devastating attacks from armed bandits for more than two years. While these attacks initially started in the North West region of Nigeria, they have since spread to other parts of the country. Armed bandits frequently kidnap unsuspecting members of the public before using their captives to secure huge ransoms in return for their release. Ransom frequently comes in the form of opaque government payments, a strategy that tends to undermine government authority. The level of coordination in the attacks seems to betray some type of paramilitary training or, at the very least, organization by leaders with military training. Making the problem worse, bandits have recently taken to targeting softer targets, such as schools, illustrated most recently by today’s mass kidnapping in Zamfara State, where gunmen took captive over three hundred schoolgirls. The kidnapping is the latest in a string of incidents. In December 2020, eighty students were kidnapped from an Islamic school in Katsina State, although they were later rescued or released. Last month, over forty-two people, including twenty-seven students, were kidnapped from a secondary school in Niger State—signaling a geographical expansion into the North Central region, part of the Middle Belt. The targeting of schools, worrying in itself, also further discourages students in a country with dismal rates of school attendance and completion. Banditry alone fails to explain the full scale of Nigeria’s internal security problem. For much of this decade, a murderous conflict between herders and farmers has plagued Nigeria, particularly in the Middle Belt. According to the Global Terrorism Index 2015 [PDF], Fulani militants—the most violent actor in the Middle Belt’s farmer-herder conflict—were adjudged the fourth-deadliest terror group in the world. In 2018, Fulani extremists were responsible for [PDF] 1,158 fatalities in Nigeria—a majority of terror-related deaths in the country that year. Intense violence perpetrated by militant herdsmen has since begun to expand further, towards the South West and South East regions, as herders search for grazing routes for their cattle. Unfortunately, a combination of drought occasioned by the rapid disappearance of Lake Chad, political instability driven by Boko Haram, and banditry made herders’ southward march an inevitability that will be difficult to reverse. A common feature of these attacks is the perceived lack of response—even complicity—from security agents. Recent rhetoric from the presidency against the response by some state governors to stem the tide of attacks from herdsmen further promotes this perception and impels communities to take up arms to protect themselves. This reality has already come to pass: southern Nigeria hosts armed, non-state actors such as the Eastern Security Network (ESN), the Western Nigeria Security Network—also known as Amotekun—in the South West, and several armed groups in the South South region. Proliferation of small arms and light weapons, a troubling feature of Nigeria’s security landscape, make the situation yet more combustible. Clashes between “self-defense” militias and herdsmen in the South East and the South West are on the rise, and they will continue to intensify as long as security agencies are beset by inaction and ineffectiveness. Layered on top of this conflagration is the ethnic dimension, with entire ethnic groups subsumed into conflicts and pitched against one another. In Oyo State, Hausa/Fulani communities have clashed with indigenes, while Nnamdi Kanu’s ESN continue to see attacks as a northern agenda against the Igbos. Nigeria’s troublesome security forces are, at present, ill-equipped to tackle frequent clashes between non-state actors. To address the worrying array of interlinked security threats, President Muhammadu Buhari needs to first shed his characteristic apathy and lack of empathy. In doing so, he should address the nation, pleading for national unity; his aides, meanwhile, should endeavor to appear neutral in their rhetoric rather than buttress perceptions of siding with particular groups. Below the state level, political actors from the various tribes would do well to see that their words and actions play an impactful role in either exacerbating or improving violent conditions. Consequently, they should eschew divisive action and instead pursue constructive solutions to the issues at hand.

On February 17, a gang of "gunmen" kidnapped more than forty students, teachers, and administrators from a secondary school in Niger State. At least one student was killed. Niger State Governor Abubakar Sani Bello has appealed for assistance from President Muhammadu Buhari, who has ordered all four service chiefs to go to Niger State to coordinate rescue operations. In December, "bandits" kidnapped some three hundred schoolboys from a school in Kankara, located in Katsina State. There have been several other mass kidnappings, though none has acquired the international notoriety of the 2014 kidnapping of more than two hundred school girls from a school in Chibok. (More than one hundred are still missing, but some recently escaped.) Most—not all—of these mass kidnappings appear to be purely mercenary. These kidnappings are different from Boko Haram attacks in the past decade where the goal was to kill those who were benefitting from Western education. In these recent instances, kidnappers are after ransom, and appear to try to keep their victims alive. Nigerian federal and state authorities always deny paying ransom. Yet they often do so. Schoolboys and bandits involved in the Kankara abduction contradicted official denials that ransom was paid. Reports suggest the Katsina State government paid N30 million (about $76,000) to recover the schoolboys. Hence, the expectation should be that unless the Kagara victims are quickly recovered, which is unlikely, either the state or federal government will pay ransom to secure the release of those who have survived. Kidnapping in Nigeria and across the Sahel can be an extraordinarily lucrative enterprise in what is one of the poorest regions in the world. "Bandits" particularly prize citizens of the European Union. As rich countries with governments susceptible to emotional public opinion, EU member states can pay enormous ransoms while always denying that they are doing so. Jihadi and criminal networks overlap in the Sahel, so kidnapping can also provide both funding and manpower for jihadi groups. At Kankara, Boko Haram's Abubakar Shekau claimed his group was behind the kidnapping, though it appears to have been purely a criminal enterprise. The United States as a matter of policy never pays ransom. The U.S. government had previously threatened to prosecute private individuals who seek to do so. Refusing to pay ransom may provide some cover for American citizens that find themselves in the Sahel. However, Americans are few in number in those areas where kidnapping is rampant.

This post is part of the Council on Foreign Relations’ blog series on human trafficking, in which CFR fellows and other leading experts assess new approaches to improve U.S. and global efforts to curb trafficking and modern slavery. This post was authored by James Cockayne.

This blog post was authored by Jamille Bigio, senior fellow in the Women and Foreign Policy program, and Elena Ortiz, intern in the Women and Foreign Policy program. Despite widespread condemnation, human trafficking persists globally—an estimated 25 million people are trafficked worldwide, producing $150 billion annually for perpetrators—and the threat is only growing due to the COVID-19 crisis. To mark National Freedom Day on February 1—the culmination of January’s National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month—we have compiled CFR resources that explore how human trafficking threatens national security, economic growth, and sustainable development, and propose steps for governments, the private sector, and civil society to combat it.  The Security Implications of Human Trafficking  Human trafficking fuels conflict and undermines international security. In this CFR discussion paper, Senior Fellow Jamille Bigio and Douglas Dillon Senior Fellow Rachel Vogelstein take stock of the multidimensional threats posed by human trafficking and outline steps for the U.S. government and its allies to promote stability by reducing human trafficking in conflict and terrorism-affected contexts.   Human Trafficking Helps Terrorists Earn Money and Strategic Advantage  Exploring the ways in which human trafficking enables terrorist and armed groups, finances criminal organizations, and supports abusive regimes, Bigio argues in Foreign Policy that ignoring its spread undermines our collective security. As the Global Economy Melts Down, Human Trafficking is Booming  Analyzing how the COVID-19 pandemic has amplified economic instability worldwide and increased risks of human trafficking and forced labor, Bigio and Research Associate Haydn Welch recommend in Foreign Policy how governments, the private sector, and civil society can better protect communities most at risk.  Modern Slavery: An Exploration of its Root Causes and the Human Toll  The CFR interactive on modern slavery offers key statistics, definitions, graphics, and case studies. This multimedia resource is a powerful introduction for those seeking to learn about the driving forces and consequences of modern slavery.   Guest Blog Series on Human Trafficking  The Women and Foreign Policy program’s guest blog series on human trafficking features insights from leading experts on new approaches to improve U.S. and global efforts to curb human trafficking and modern slavery. Topics include opportunities for the Biden administration to combat human trafficking; analysis of the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on human trafficking risks; reflections on the twentieth anniversary of the Palermo Protocol—a landmark international trafficking instrument; steps to curb child labor worldwide (recognizing 2021 as the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labor); how technology can help combat forced labor in global supply chains; and opportunities for data-driven decisions to end modern slavery.    CFR General Meetings on Combatting Human Trafficking In January 2021, NBC’s Cynthia McFadden moderated a discussion with Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation; Angel Gurría, secretary general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); and Paul Polman,  cofounder and chair of IMAGINE and former CEO of Unilever on the role of the private sector in eliminating human trafficking and forced labor. Last year, Kathleen Hunt guided a conversation with Bigio, Rohingya activist Wai Nu, and former Ambassador-at-large John Cotton Richmond on the security implications of human trafficking.  CFR Podcast Episodes To mark July 30 as the United Nations’ World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, James M. Lindsay, podcast host of The President’s Inbox and CFR's director of studies, spoke last year with Bigio on the spread of human trafficking and global efforts to address it. CFR’s Why It Matters podcast explored the human cost of labor trafficking in an episode hosted by CFR’s Gabrielle Sierra. What is the Kafala System?  Traced to a growing demand in Gulf economies for cheap labor, the kafala (sponsorship) program gives companies in Jordan, Lebanon, and most Arab Gulf countries complete control over workers’ immigration and employment rights. CFR’s Kali Robinson describes the modern slavery risks intricately embedded within the kafala system.  

This post is part of the Council on Foreign Relations’ blog series on human trafficking, in which CFR fellows and other leading experts assess new approaches to improve U.S. and global efforts to curb trafficking and modern slavery. This post was authored by Marcia Eugenio.

This post is part of the Council on Foreign Relations’ blog series on human trafficking, in which CFR fellows and other leading experts assess new approaches to improve U.S. and global efforts to curb trafficking and modern slavery. This post was authored by Sarah E. Mendelson.

"As our Nation and the world continue to respond to COVID-19, we should look ahead to how we will create a safer and more equitable economic recovery for workers in the United States and around the world...It should be a priority of the United States government to advance the rights of women around the world. To that end, our trade laws should be modernized."

This post is part of the Council on Foreign Relations’ blog series on human trafficking, in which CFR fellows and other leading experts assess new approaches to improve U.S. and global efforts to curb trafficking and modern slavery. This post was authored by Dr. Jean Baderschneider, inaugural-CEO and Chair of the Board of Directors, Global Fund to End Modern Slavery (GFEMS).

The kidnapping of hundreds of schoolboys from the Government Science Secondary School in Kankara, located in Nigeria's northwestern Katsina state, recalls Boko Haram's 2014 kidnapping of Chibok schoolgirls, of whom more than one hundred are still in captivity. The Kankara school had an enrollment of over eight hundred students—perhaps more than 1,200, according to some reports. Like Chibok, it is a state-run boarding school. According to the Katsina state governor, 333 students are still unaccounted for. Unlike at Chibok, security forces responded quickly to the attack, facilitating the escape into the bush of many of the boys. Abubakar Shekau, the chief of a Boko Haram faction, allegedly is claiming responsibility for the kidnapping. However, in the past, when Boko Haram factions attacked schools, it enslaved the girls and murdered the boys. At Kankara, no boys were killed, and one boy who escaped told the media that he heard an organizer order that none were to be. Boko Haram factions, up to now, have not been active in Katsina state. Criminal gangs, however—called “Fulani” in the media—are ubiquitous and frequently carry out kidnapping for ransom. Hence, the likelihood remains that the kidnapping was carried out by criminal gangs rather than a Boko Haram faction. Katsina is the home state of President Muhammadu Buhari, who has denounced the kidnapping. Yet Kankara residents are complaining to the media that the state, in failing to protect its citizens, has shown itself to be of little value. Beyond the personal tragedy, that may be the significance of Kankara: it further undermines confidence in the Nigerian state.

This post is part of the Council on Foreign Relations’ blog series on human trafficking, in which CFR fellows and other leading experts assess new approaches to improve U.S. and global efforts to curb trafficking and modern slavery. This post was authored by Dan Viederman, managing director of the Working Capital Fund.

This post is part of the Council on Foreign Relations’ blog series on human trafficking, in which CFR fellows and other leading experts assess new approaches to improve U.S. and global efforts to curb trafficking and modern slavery. This post was authored by Philip Langford, President of IJM United States, and Peter Williams, Principal Advisor on Modern Slavery at IJM.  

Last year, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring 2021 the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labor. Despite such commitment, recent global estimates project child labour to be on the rise, with cases surging by up to 50 million in the next five years. 

This blog post was authored by Olivia Enos, senior policy analyst in the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation, and Mark P. Lagon, chief policy officer of Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and former U.S. Ambassador-At-Large to Combat Trafficking in Persons, CEO of Polaris, and president of Freedom House. It has now been twenty years since the U.S. Congress enacted the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) and the world crafted the Palermo Protocol. With an imminent presidential election, what direction should U.S. policy take on trafficking in persons (TIP)? Forming a unified strategy, prioritizing the role of survivors and civil society, and capitalizing on an opportunity for U.S. global leadership offer the recipe to take the global battle against modern day slavery to a new level. Unified, Focused Strategy An interagency strategy that capitalizes on the historically bipartisan nature of efforts to combat TIP is in order. A multiplicity of parallel strategies emerged from various agencies over the last three presidential administrations, yet there still remains no single cohesive strategy that unifies these various lines of effort. The Trump administration was expected to issue a comprehensive strategy at the White House Summit on Human Trafficking this past January to commemorate the twentieth year anniversary of the passage of the TVPA. But a National Action Plan only materialized on October 19, 2020. Benefits of a more comprehensive interagency strategy include the potential to identify areas of synergy and cooperation across agencies while simultaneously streamlining efforts to eliminate duplication or rectify efforts working at cross-purposes with one another. A comprehensive strategy might offer clarity regarding the role of new entities like the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery (created and partially funded by Congress, GFEMS has targeted focused grants to, for instance, India, Vietnam, and the Philippines yet, thus far, has been slow to produce the incidence studies upon which its progress was premised—the first are expected later this year). The strategy also would offer clarity on new positions, like the first-ever White House position in the Domestic Policy Council to serve as an interagency coordinator for U.S. anti-trafficking efforts. It is worth asking whether the proliferation of institutions and positions diluting the State Department TIP Office’s lead interagency role (and proliferation of legislation beyond TVPA reauthorizations) has corresponded with an increase in the efficacy of U.S. efforts to combat human trafficking. A unified strategy should address questions about the United States’ principal goals in championing antihuman trafficking efforts. Is it to reduce the number of victims? Is it to better equip governments around the world with the knowledge of best practices for combatting trafficking? Is it to act as exemplar refining the United States’ own efforts to combat trafficking domestically? Or is it a mix of these priorities?   Some of these challenges may be better addressed through an interagency strategy. Any future administration would be well-advised to pursue one in 2021. Civil Society as the Linchpin Civil society is key to overcoming trafficking. All too often, even democratic governments treat civil society as carping critics or suitors to garner state funding rather than as invaluable partners—not to speak of autocratic governments seeking to muzzle civil society. Indeed, civil society is increasingly under duress—a fourteen-year global trend documented by Freedom House, and also CIVICUS. It is little appreciated that the assistance the TIP Office gives to civil society implementers around the world is as important as its famous annual TIP report that gives grades to countries. For that reason, the TIP office should reverse its trend over the past two presidencies of favoring U.S.-based contractors— “beltway bandits”— rather than mission-driven and experience-rich civil society grantees. Prioritizing civil society’s response rightly recognizes that addressing, and eventually eradicating, human trafficking requires vigilance and focus not only from governments, but from individuals and civil society. It also acknowledges that a lot of human trafficking is local and requires solutions tailored to the forms of trafficking most prevalent or unique to that location. On-the-ground civil society organizations are often the best positioned to respond in these contexts. One organization, The Market Project, provides opportunities to survivors of trauma to become a part of fully operational, market-based businesses and equips them with skills that offer survivors hope and a future. The Market Project started Nguvu Dairy in Uganda, a frozen yogurt business that meets the demand for a product in the local community, while employing survivors of exploitation in a trauma-informed workplace. Because the business meets a market need of that community, it is profitable largely apart from philanthropy and helps teach survivors transferable skills, like how to run a business. This organization reminds us that civil society can harness the private sector as a non-government force for good, and not just a witting or unwitting enabler of trafficking. Civil society organizations that treat survivors as equals, not resources to be mined, equip survivors with opportunities to speak to the exploitation they faced without further compromising their dignity. Survivors’ insights can help better inform civil society; survivors become an integral part of the civil society response by forming their own non-governmental organizations and leading the charge for justice. The U.S. government, too, recognizes the value of bringing survivor voices into the discussion, founding the U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking, which provides input at senior levels on how best to advance U.S. anti-trafficking policies. Efforts should be made to ensure that survivor input is heard and implemented. One way of doing this would be to integrate their voices into the creation of a comprehensive inter-agency strategy. Opportunity for Restored U.S. Global Leadership U.S. leadership has demonstrably contributed to progress against trafficking. That so many nations have enacted comprehensive laws covering all forms of trafficking (for children and adults, and for sexual and labor exploitation) has a lot to do with the U.S. annual report’s assessments and accompanying diplomacy—as proven by scholars such as Duke University’s Judith Kelley. Muddying clarity about the relationship of migration and trafficking, or applying sanctions either chiefly to strategic enemies or alternatively as a blanket excuse to reduce foreign assistance, can contribute to a drift in U.S. leadership. The result would be a curtailing of progress in a still long road to abolishing modern slavery. Renewed U.S. leadership on TIP can spur progress in countries. The United States should encourage and partner with countries to not merely pass laws and create interagency working groups and survivor referral mechanisms as is common, but also work to markedly increase prosecutions, as well as victim identification and rehabilitation efforts. Without U.S. leadership, governments worldwide may not step up within their country or on the global stage to address this scourge, and the ones that do (China or illiberal governments in the UN) may not do so in a manner that respects the rights and inherent equal value of all people. Choosy use of the most effective multilateral mechanisms is needed.     Consider, however, not just what U.S. leadership offers to the fight against TIP, but what the fight against TIP offers to U.S. global leadership. Fighting human trafficking at home advances U.S. credibility not only in its anti-trafficking diplomacy but in its overall global standing. Particularly in a time when the enduring legacies of slavery are a focus of a national reckoning today, efforts to stamp out modern-day slavery (without denigrating or failing to address the former) are important. Fighting trafficking has been a calling card of U.S. foreign policy for two decades. Governments see the United States putting resources behind tackling a scourge that is not solely a parochial U.S. interest. In the future, forceful but collaborative leadership will help restore the standing of non-military assets of foreign policy – what some call “soft power” but which is really persuasive power. It will help reverse a decline in U.S. credibility where the U.S. government has failed to consistently apply its power to key matters of principle. The reason why progress against trafficking buoys global leadership (and not just vice versa) is that the most sustainable, consequential and credible U.S. statecraft ties interests and values together. Future U.S. anti-trafficking strategy should continue to be rooted in the truth of people’s inherent dignity. When a group is subject to discrimination, stigma or marginalization – whether woman, migrant, or disadvantaged caste or minority – they are made more vulnerable to the extreme exploitation which defines trafficking. Their subjection to the compounded indignity of then being blamed for their own fate in prostitution or migrant labor necessitates action. In revitalizing its trailblazer role against trafficking, the United States will remind the world it is dedicated—rededicated—to working in partnership with civic and faith actors, businesses, and other states to apply its still unsurpassed power toward advancing universal values of dignity and equality.

The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated human lives, the global economy, and educational systems. Given the enormous financial hardship on families, the mass movement of people, and the closing of schools, the risks of human trafficking have increased. In this environment, multidisciplinary interventions coupled with innovation, technology, and entrepreneurial thinking must remain a priority.