ABSTRACT
Since child trafficking is an illegal recruitment, transfer, transportation, harboring or receipt of persons by means of threat or use of force or other forms of abduction or fraud, deception and abuse to the vulnerable child to abuse and achieve their exploitation purposes; the study thus assessed the perception of child trafficking issue from the professionals in Benin Edo State. It examine the remote causes of child trafficking in Edo state Nigeria; determine the effects of child trafficking on the victims and the family; examine the illicit act of the traffickers to promote their business and the legal implication on the act; examine the influences of government; NGO’s and other related bodies in attempted to solve the problems of child trafficking. Thus, the study employed Marxian economy theory otherwise referred to as the political economy theory, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and labeling theory with the sample size of 502. The study revealed amongst other that under-aged girl into prostitution are alarming, due to several factors such as political factor, which resulted in high level of weak capacity of government institutions, and Lack of resourceful support and commitment to poverty alleviation. While socio-cultural factors include absentee of parent, large family size, and low literacy level; however, environmental factors includes inadequate access to basic social amenities, and rapid urbanization. The study concludes that there is urgent need for government and appropriate authorities to look into the welfare of the child in Edo State and in Nigeria at large to help reduce the trending menace by traffickers in the society. The study therefore recommends amongst many other that Edo state government, non-governmental organization, community based organization and media organization should sustain more public and media interest on child trafficking with radical public education programmes. Also, secret detectives should be established to any culprits and wealth gotten from this trade and be confiscated so as to serve as a deterrent to others. Thus, punitive law should not be applicable to traffickers or sponsors alone but should include parents, religious leaders (herbalist, pastors) and government officials involve in the trade. Government in collaboration with destination countries should implement strict laws to ensure that the issue of porous border is resolve. Above all, effort should be made towards the eradication of poverty in Edo state, more infrastructure and social amenities should be establish all and sundry at an affordable price and there should be transparency in governance.
