Identity and Dignity Rights
Trafficking — Lured by False Job Offer
When a promised overseas job becomes debt bondage
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10 minutes
The Situation
What They Said
“There's no job in Italy. You now owe us money for travel and accommodation. You'll work it off doing what we say.”
A young Nigerian woman has been recruited by someone she believed was a legitimate employment agent, who promised her a well-paying catering or hospitality job in Europe. Upon arrival — or sometimes while still in Nigeria or in transit — she is told the job does not exist, and that she has incurred a large 'debt' for travel, visa facilitation, and accommodation that she must repay through forced labour, often sexual exploitation. This is one of the most prevalent forms of human trafficking affecting Nigerian women and girls, particularly those from Edo, Delta, and Lagos states. The victim is typically isolated, frightened, in an unfamiliar environment, and does not know she has legal rights or where to turn. The 'debt' she is told she owes is not legally enforceable — it is itself a criminal instrument.
The Fallacy
Fraudulent Debt Obligation
The trafficker's claim that a debt exists and must be repaid through labour rests on two separate legal falsehoods. First, any debt created through deception — luring someone under false pretences — is not a binding legal obligation, because the underlying contract was formed by fraud. Second, even if a debt were legitimate, Nigerian and international law does not permit the repayment of debt through forced labour or sexual exploitation — that is the definition of debt bondage, which is itself a serious criminal offence. A debt fabricated by traffickers cannot create a legal obligation on the victim, and the attempt to enforce it through coercion is a separate crime layered on top of the original trafficking offence.
What the Law Says
Your Legal Foundation
Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Enforcement and Administration Act 2015
Section 14 — Trafficking in Persons — Criminal Offence
“Any person who recruits, transports, transfers, harbours or receives another person by means of threat, force, coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power, or the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person for the purpose of exploitation commits the offence of trafficking in persons.”
The conduct described in this scenario — recruiting through a false job offer, transporting the victim, and then exploiting her through forced labour — is the textbook definition of trafficking under Section 14 of the NAPTIP Act. The fact that the victim initially agreed to travel does not matter; consent obtained through deception or false promises is explicitly nullified by this section. Everyone involved in the recruitment, transportation, and exploitation chain is criminally liable.
Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Enforcement and Administration Act 2015
Section 17 — Debt Bondage — Criminal Offence
“Any person who holds another person in a state of debt bondage, or uses debt bondage to control or exploit another person, commits an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term of not less than five years.”
Section 17 specifically targets debt bondage — the exact mechanism being used in this scenario. The trafficker's insistence that the victim 'owes' money and must work it off is itself an independently prosecutable criminal offence, separate from the trafficking charge. This means the victim has not one but multiple criminal complaints she can report to NAPTIP.
Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended)
Section 35 — Right to Personal Liberty
“Every person shall be entitled to his personal liberty and no person shall be deprived of such liberty save in the following cases and in accordance with a procedure permitted by law.”
Detention through debt bondage and threats is a deprivation of liberty in violation of Section 35. The victim's confinement — whether physical or through psychological coercion — is unconstitutional and actionable. This constitutional right applies even when the victim is outside Nigeria, as Nigerian citizenship carries constitutional protections that the Nigerian government, through its embassies and consulates, is obliged to uphold.
What Scripture Says
God's Word on This
Isaiah 58:6 (NIV)
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?”
The image here is of bonds being deliberately broken — not by the victim's strength alone, but through the intervention of those who recognise injustice and act against it. The person in this situation is not alone, and the law is one of the instruments designed to do exactly what this verse describes: dismantle the structures of coercion that hold people captive. Knowing and invoking the law is part of how the chains of debt bondage are loosed.
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What They'll Say Next
Common Counter-Arguments
After you respond, they may push back with these arguments. Members get the full rebuttal for each.
They might say: “We are not traffickers — we are a legitimate employment agency. We have an office and a registration certificate. You are just refusing to honour your agreement.”
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They might say: “If you report us, we will report you to immigration authorities. You are in this country without proper documentation — you will be deported.”
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