“Nigerian Women working in Iraq are being exploited.” – NAPTIP DG

Nigerian women working in Iraq are exploited in many ways, according to Prof. Fatima Waziri-Azi, director general of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons.

When discussing the plight of young women, the DG made this disclosure in a statement, claiming that the majority of them were employed as domestic helpers in Iraq and regularly exploited.

Most young Nigerian women, according to Waziri-Azi, are now demanding help from others in order to go back to their homes.

According to her, NAPTIP is currently looking into a number of rogue labor recruiters who were allegedly key figures in the widespread recruitment of Nigerians to Iraq for domestic servitude.

The DG added that since the CIA and its partners had made traffickers aware of the well-known destination nations across the world, their focus has now turned to Iraq.

“We are inundated with pleas for rescue and repatriation from female victims trafficked to Iraq, especially to the cities of Baghdad and Basra where they are distributed to homes by their recruiters to a hard life of domestic servitude.

“Available information shows that many of these victims have been admitted to hospital many times due to long work hours under harsh conditions they are forced to undergo.

“Most of them have complained of deteriorating health resulting from the weight of work.

“They are constantly under threat of being harmed either by their direct employers or the Iraqi agents, each time they complained of unbearable workload.

“Many of them have no access to their phones because their phones are seized immediately, they are paired with an employer.

“They are never allowed out of the premises where they are serving and even when communication is established with them for rescue, they cannot give details of their location,” she said.

The DG acknowledged the alarming nature of the situation and added that the heavy burden placed on the weak by their taskmasters was quite concerning.

According to Waziri-Azi, Nigerian women’s plight is made worse by the fact that they are frequently the targets of sexual harassment from people in the household where they are employed.

She urged Nigerians to take heed of this frantic desire to leave the country in search of greener pastures, noting that it was the main motivation for many of them to travel.

The DG claimed that many Nigerian women had fallen victim to both labor recruiters’ lies and those of human traffickers, who had promised them lucrative positions abroad.

She emphasized the necessity for individuals to carefully consider each offer that was made to them and to get a second and third opinion before accepting such offers from outside the country.

According to her, “If a sponsor facilitates your travel, you will be forced to do any job to pay off your sponsor before earning money for yourself.”

The DG stated that NAPTIP would continue to work with relevant Ministries, Department and Agencies in Nigeria and partners to ensure the safe return of the victims from Iraq.