To support Nigerian women living in Iraq, the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons has announced that it will collaborate with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to provide assistance.
On Monday, this information was shared with our correspondent by Zacks Dauda, who serves as the spokesperson for NAPTIP.
According to report, the NAPTIP issued a statement of concern on Wednesday of the previous week regarding the precarious situation of young Nigerian women who are employed as domestic workers in Iraq.
Prof. Fatima Waziri-Azi, the Director-General of the Nigerian Agency for the Promotion of Trade and Investment Promotion (NAPTIP), disclosed that the agency was investigating several rogue labor recruiters who had been reported to be major players in the massive recruitment of Nigerians to Iraq for domestic servitude.
Waziri-Ari made the allegation that the majority of the young Nigerian women who worked there were subjected to various forms of sexual exploitation on a daily basis and are now pleading for help to return home.
She stated, “We are inundated with pleas for rescue and repatriation from female victims who were trafficked to Iraq, particularly to the cities of Baghdad and Basra, where they are distributed to homes by their recruiters to a difficult life of domestic servitude.”
According to the information that is currently available, a significant number of these victims have been hospitalized multiple times as a direct result of the demanding working conditions that they are compelled to endure.
NAPTIP spokesman Dauda provided an update on the situation on Monday and explained, “We do not have the number of Nigerian women in Iraq who are going through this terrible situation, but we are trying to find out where these cases are happening, and we are trying to work with the Foreign Affairs Ministry to see if we can establish contacts and evacuate anyone we can find.”
