United Nations Women Nigeria has decried the high rate of human trafficking in Nigeria, attributing it to high rate of unemployment in the country.

It also warned the government to build shelters for the return of victims of trafficking. Programme Analyst of UN Women, Aminat Tope, made this known, yesterday, in Abuja, at a workshop organised by CLEEN Foundation, in collaboration with United Nations Women. The theme was, ‘Methodology Workshop on Gender Audit Tool Development for the Assessment of Protection Services and Shelters on Forced Migration and Human Trafficking in the FCT’.

She urged governments at all levels to enforce stiffer laws against human trafficking to prevent consistent deaths and slavery of Nigerians.

“Unemployment, poverty and economics challenges are the push factors of human trafficking in Nigeria. Push factors are the factors pushing them away from Nigeria. If they’re empowered after coming back, they may not go into the trafficking again,” she said.