Women tasked on education to checkmate trafficking

Founder of Mothers of the Earth International Foundation, Hajiya Hafsatu Yusuf, has tasked women on education, saying it is the only way to checkmate the rising trend of human trafficking in Nigeria.

Hajiya Yusuf, who made the call at the second International Conference on the economic and social effects of women migration in Africa, which held recently in Abuja, said her organisation came up with the conference to give out enough information to women on how to get busy even while at home as well as explore avenues of self-empowerment.

She said: “It is the love i have for my fellow women that pushed me into setting up this NGO. We came up with this conference, first and foremost to give enough information to women to love themselves, get busy even while at home and explore avenues for self-empowerment.”
Also speaking, one of the participants at the conference, and former Ugandan Ambassador, Ireneo Namboko, said women education remained the greatest empowerment, adding that most women had been forced into prostitution abroad by traffickers with initial promises of jobs, husbands and better livelihood.

“We as individuals must be conscious not to mistreat women in our
society and stop looking up to government as women protection begins at home.”

Namboko stressed that when “we don’t take care of our women and deny them education, they become more vulnerable to traffickers.”

Also speaking, the President, Youths for Human Right International, Dr
Mary Shuttleworth, said women constituted the highest number of exploited migrant workers in the world, adding that “the highest number of them is from Africa.”

She said over 2.4 million persons were trafficked annually all over the world, “but women make up an overwhelming number of these persons trafficked for sex.”