ABSTRCT
Trafficking of women and young girls is an age-old phenomenon in all societies. This phenomenon has a number of far-reaching socio-economic, political and health consequences. Poverty, unemployment, greed, family size and ignorance are among the reasons why women and young girls fall easy prey to traffickers.
The study examined specifically, the Trafficking in Women in Benin City, Edo State: Its pattern, trend, causes and remedy. A mix-method of both quantitative and qualitative approach was adopted for this study. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 550 respondents. The qualitative data comprise of 20 In-depth Interviews (IDIs) collected through a purposively sampled respondents. The quantitative data were analyzed using Statistical package of Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.0. The qualitative data were analyzed using content analysis.
From the study it was observed that non- availability of jobs and household poverty are the major factors that push victims to travel and trafficking, hence majority of the victims are from poor homes and their parents encourage them to travel in order to bring them out of poverty. The study also find out that the endemic nature of poverty in Benin City is the primary reason why young women travelled abroad as agreed by majority of the respondents.
Finally, it also observed from the study that social workers aid in the enhancement of social functioning of trafficked victims and it recommends government intervention in several key areas that include provision of programs that promote economic well-being of women and social advocacy that focus on reducing the negative perception of both voluntarily returnees and deported victims. Continuous effort should be made to prosecute traffickers in order to serve as deterrent to others.
