Published 9th Aug, 2022

By Daniel Ojukwu

Females between the ages of 16 and 25 were the most trafficked within and outside Nigeria in 2019 and 2020, the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has revealed.

In 2019, 523 females within this age bracket were trafficked for various reasons, and in 2020, a further 428 became victims, taking the total to 951 females.

In its recently published 2021 Demographic Statistics Bulletin, the NBS revealed that in the years under review, females were more likely victims across all age brackets than their male counterparts.

In each year, there was consistency in the choice of female targets as the 16-25 age group ranked highest with a combined total of 951 victims, and 6-15 age group ranked second with 532 total victims.

With a combined total of 222 victims, the 26-35 female age group was the third most trafficked. This number equals the total number of males trafficked in 2020 and supersedes the male total for 2019 by one.

Between the ages 0-5 and 36 above, there were a total of 91 female victims. In both years, there were a total of 2,239 victims of trafficking, 1,796 females (80.2 percent) and 443 males (19.8 percent). Of this total, 42.47 percent were females between 16 and 25.

In 2019, a total of 354 female-related cases for sexual exploitation were recorded between ages 18 and above, compared to 48 males, while in 2020, 272 were female victims compared to 6 males.

The most common reason for trafficking females, especially those who were 18 and older, was for sexual exploitation.

Child abuse was a close second with 110 female victims in 2019, and 142 in 2020.

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