NIGERIA: Current Economic Challenges will Increase Human Trafficking, Cardinal Warns

ABUJA SEPTEMBER 9, 2016(CISA) – John Cardinal Onaiyekan of the Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja has warned Nigeria’s Government that the current economic challenges facing the country could lead to increase in human trafficking.

“Trafficking is likely to increase the number of frustrated people who cannot make ends meet. You know by the time you finish university and you are roaming the streets for three, four, five and six years no job and you are becoming 30 or 31 years of age with no future, it is very difficult to sit down quietly,” said Cardinal Oneiyekan.

Speaking at the Caritas conference on human trafficking within and from Africa in Abuja September 7, he urged the Federal Government to urgently do something to improve the economy.

“Maybe they (government) are telling people to look for other ways of making a living, go to farm but government will have to do a little bit more to make it possible for young people to go to farm or to do other things but to just sit down doing nothing and rotting away is a little bit frustrating. That is what I know,” Nigeria’s Vanguard Newspaper quoted Cardinal Oneiyekan as saying.

“But, like I said, immigration to an unknown destination is not the real answer. People say that it can always be better up there. It is not true. It can be worse over there than what you are facing here,”

“At least here you have no winter; you can sleep under the bridge. You cannot sleep under the bridge there. You will die of cold,” concluded the prelate.

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