A/HRC/41/46/Add.1 Nigeria as a transit and destination country 22. As a transit country, Nigeria is a hub for victims of trafficking from West African countries. Trafficked women transit Nigeria en route to Europe and the Middle East, where they are often trafficked for sexual exploitation. The ports and waterways around Calabar also serve as a point of transit for trafficked children to Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. The country also remains a destination point for victims of forced labour. Nigeria receives women and children from other Western and Central African countries. III. Legal, policy and institutional frameworks for combating trafficking in persons A. Legal framework International legal framework 23. Nigeria is party to the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, as well as to a number of international human rights instruments, including the Slavery Convention (1927); the Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others (1949); the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29); the Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957 (No. 105); and the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182). 24. Regrettably, Nigeria has not yet ratified the Protocol of 2014 to the Forced Labour Convention, 1930; the Forced Labour (Supplementary Measures) Recommendation, 2014 (No. 203); and the Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189). Domestic legal framework: federal level 25. Nigeria has a solid legal foundation to combat trafficking, starting from the Constitution, which prohibits slavery or servitude and forced or compulsory labour (art. 34.1). 26. In addition, the federal Child Rights Act, adopted in 2003 and ratified so far by 24 states, codifies the rights of children, including with regard to trafficking, forced labour and other harmful practices. Sections 21–23 of the Act prohibit child marriage and prescribe penalties; sections 28–30 prohibit forced labour, including child trafficking; and sections 30–32 prohibit the commercial sexual exploitation of children. Although the Act criminalizes using, procuring and offering a child in the production and trafficking of drugs, the remaining 12 states from northern Nigeria that have not yet ratified it have no legislation in place to criminalize that crime. 27. The most comprehensive framework is provided by the Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) and Enforcement Administration Act, adopted in 2003, amended in 2005 and re-enacted in 2015, which provides for a definition of trafficking in accordance with the Trafficking in Persons Protocol and established the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons. 28. The State has taken laudable steps towards strengthening the legislative framework to address human trafficking in Nigeria by the passage of the Trafficking in Persons Act. It has also taken an innovative approach to criminalizing commercial carriers who use their vessel, or whose vessels are used, to transport potentially trafficked persons and has instituted stiffer penalties by restricting the ability of judges to penalize human trafficking offenders with fines in lieu of prison time. In addition, the amended Act criminalizes the employment of children under age 12 for domestic work. 29. Nonetheless, the Special Rapporteur notes that the legislation is more oriented towards the prosecution of traffickers than to the prevention of trafficking and the 6