REVISITING ARMED CONFLICT AND HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN NIGERIA: WHAT ROLE FOR THE RULE OF LAW?

Abstract

The Continent known as Africa has been contending with numerous armed conflicts since the end of the Second World War. These conflicts are mostly intrastate such as civil wars, conflicts as fallouts from military coups and occasionally instances of religious crises between fanatical Muslim and Christian groups. The Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria which ravaged the North-Eastern region of Nigeria from 2012 to 2017 is a classic example of religious insurgency in Africa. Although victims of such conflicts are usually not gender specific, women and female children suffer disproportionately as they are more predisposed to rights abuses and sexual based violence. This paper examines human trafficking of women and children in times of armed conflict in some African countries such as Nigeria and the Central African Republic. The doctrinal method of research methodology was applied in conducting the research for this paper and the research among other things observes that generally, some existing literature have suggested that armed conflict and human trafficking intersect as armed conflict increases the risks of human trafficking by weakening rule of law, unfortunately, despite the robust legal framework for human trafficking in Africa the problem persists. It concludes that human trafficking is a common occurrence during armed conflicts and recommends that African states, especially Nigeria and the Central African Republic, must strengthen the rule of law by means of creative anti-trafficking strategies in humanitarian responses through pro-active collaboration with the international community.