A/HRC/41/46/Add.1 lesser extent, Delta and Benue States. 1 Of the 1,890 victims rescued in 2017, according to the Agency, 89 of them originated from outside Nigeria, mainly from Benin and Togo. 2 6. Poverty, displacement, economic hardship and unemployment, especially among young people, and restrictive European migratory policies, gender inequality, discrimination and stereotyping, coupled with strong traditional practices and beliefs, are identified as the main root causes of trafficking in persons in Nigeria. Multiple factors contributing to this phenomenon also include the disruption of family and community support systems. The large profits generated for the traffickers in Nigeria, coupled with the high level of impunity and the well-structured and adaptable nature of the Nigerian trafficking networks, are among the reasons for its endurance. B. International forms of trafficking in person 7. The phenomenon of trafficking of Nigerians, especially women and girls, to Europe for the purpose of sexual exploitation has been going on since the late 1980s. During the 1990s, Benin City in Edo State, in particular, evolved into a hub for international organized crime, where “sponsors” and “madams” covered women’s travel from Nigeria to Europe in exchange for them being exploited into prostitution after their arrival. 8. According to a report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in 2017, an estimated 80 per cent of girls arriving in Italy from Nigeria, most of whom are between 13 and 24 years old, are potential victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation. The majority of them come from Edo State but some also from other parts of the country. Victims are reluctant, at least at first, to access the protection programmes provided by IOM and local institutions in destination countries, mainly owing to the physical or psychological control held by traffickers over their victims or the fear of retaliation by traffickers against the victim’s family members in their country of origin. 3 9. A widespread characteristic of the Nigerian trafficking system is the use by traffickers of threats of “voodoo curses” (juju in Nigeria) to manipulate victims, especially women and girls, and force them into exploitative situations. Once arrangements for the victims’ trips abroad are completed, traffickers seal the deal by taking the victims to the shrines of voodoo priests for a traditional ceremony of oath-taking. During the ritual, in which body parts such as fingernails, blood and/or pubic hairs are collected, the woman is made to swear an oath to repay her debt, never to report her situation to the police or reveal the identities of her traffickers. Fear of breaking the oath is so strong that it creates a powerful hold over the victims and impedes them from seeking help or cooperating with law enforcement. About 90 per cent of the girls trafficked to Europe are reportedly taken to shrines for “oaths of secrecy”. 10. Nigerian women and girls are also widely exploited in Libya by traffickers, who keep them in so-called connection houses, where they are sexually exploited and raped by up to 20 men a day without receiving any contraception, often become pregnant and are forced to pay for unsafe abortions. Men and boys are also increasingly subjected to rape and other forms of sexual abuse, as demonstrated by a rise in 2018 in cases of men and boys receiving treatment and support for the physical and psychological consequences of sexual abuse.4 1 2 3 4 Following her visit, the Special Rapporteur was informed of the Agency’s efforts to identify a large number of Nigerian women and girls, allegedly trafficked to Mali for sexual exploitation, and to repatriate about 40 of them in cooperation with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in January 2019. National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, “2017 Data analysis final report” (June 2018). IOM, “Human trafficking through the central Mediterranean route: data, stories and information collected by the International Organization for Migration” (2017). See United Nations Support Mission in Libya and OHCHR, “Desperate and dangerous: report on the human rights situations of migrants and refugees in Libya”, (December 2018), p. 33. 3