A young girl is offered a job in Lagos, another Nigerian city or even a foreign country. The offer often comes with promises of good wages, accommodation and an opportunity to lift her family out of poverty. In some cases, the person making the offer is a relative, a trusted acquaintance or someone recommended by a family member.
However, the promising opportunity can quickly turn into a nightmare. Along the journey, the girl may have her phone confiscated, be transported through unfamiliar routes and transferred between vehicles before arriving at a destination she never agreed to visit. Some victims never return home alive, while those who manage to reunite with their families often have painful experiences to recount.
For many vulnerable Nigerian children and young people, what begins as a search for a better life ends in sexual exploitation, forced labour and modern-day slavery.
In Benue State, human trafficking has become increasingly alarming amid worsening insecurity, displacement and economic hardship. Violence has forced thousands of residents to abandon their ancestral communities, leaving families and children struggling to survive in unfamiliar surroundings. Traffickers are exploiting these difficult circumstances to lure vulnerable people into their networks.
One person confronting the growing menace is 36-year-old anti-trafficking campaigner Sughnen Yaaya, who describes the trade as increasingly organised and difficult to control.
Yaaya said that since March 2026, he had intercepted 573 girls from Benue within Nigeria and facilitated the return of another 103 from Ghana, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso and other countries. He also claimed that approximately 32 girls from the state had died abroad in circumstances associated with trafficking.
