The Executive Secretary National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Tony Ojukwu Esq. has described human trafficking as the worst form of slavery in Nigeria.
Mr. Ojukwu made the remark while speaking on the theme “Ending Slavery Legacy of Racism: A Global Imperative to Justice,” during this year’s ceremony marking the International Day of Remembrance of Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade in Abuja.
He said the day serves as a reminder that though slave trade had been abolished, there are related forms of modern-day slavery that inhibit the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms in Nigeria.
The human rights lawyer and NHRC CEO in a press statement issued by the Deputy Director Public Affairs, Fatimah Agwai Mohammed, cautioned the perpetrators of the dastardly act of human trafficking and other forms of slavery to desist from the practice.
He said human trafficking, an act of recruitment and transportation of persons within or across borders of the country, is the fastest-growing form of slavery in Nigeria today, adding that “the effects have continued to disorientate our social and mental well-being as a nation.”
The executive secretary stated that, “apart from human trafficking in all its ramifications, we are also confronted with ethnicity in this modern time, including discriminations based on the perception that a certain group of people are different and superior to others and this results in a kind of treatment or attitude that makes the disadvantaged group feel inferior or persecuted just like persons who were captured and sold as slaves between the 16th and 17th century.”
He said all hands must be on deck to put an end to all forms of slavery because they are inimical to freedom in a civilised world.
