UNITED NATIONS DAY AGAINST TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS – 30TH JULY 2020
THE ASSOCIATION OF CHRISTIAN COUNSELLORS OF NIGERIA (ORGANISATION IN SPECIAL CONSULTATIVE STATUS WITH THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL OF THE UNITED NATIONS SINCE 2017) MARKS THE UNITED NATIONS DAY AGAINST TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS – 30TH JULY 2020
The association joined every concerned individual and organization all over the world on 30th July 2020 to mark the United Nations Day against Trafficking in Persons. The Association of Christian Counsellors of Nigeria states this day that Human Trafficking is a crime against humanity. It dehumanizes, demeans and strips victims of their fundamental human rights. The question we all should ask is, should humans at this age and time be selling and buying fellow human beings? Yet, it is a business worth over $160 billion but to whose advantage? Literature has acknowledged that it is a borderless, no risk business to the perpetrator but we in the Association of Christian Counsellors of Nigeria state unequivocally that it can only remain a borderless no risk business until everyone, every institution and every government rises up to say enough is enough and with One Voice and with One Action carry the war to the zone of the perpetrators and their patronisers. For as long as the battle as it is today remains reactionary, the business will continue. At the global Zoom lectures held to mark this day and moderated by Caterina Mikkonen from Helsinki (Norway) which we participated in, it was highlighted by one of the speakers that sex slavery for instance will continue as long as porn sites are not legislated against and as long as the benefits derived by the beneficiaries of this inhuman trade are not made near impossible to access. In the words of Jeannoda (cited in the ‘Trafficking In Persons Report’, Department of State: United States of America, 2016), “People are not merchandize and cannot be used as bait during an economic and political crisis. Poverty does not justify human trafficking’ (p. 7).
If after over 150 years when slavery was said to have been abolished and we are still grappling with it as it is today, the only answer may be that we are not united in purpose in stamping out the trade hence, the Association of Christian Counsellors of Nigeria (organization in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations since 2017) advocates on this day;
ONE VOICE – ONE ACTION
SAY NO TO
HUMAN TRAFFICKING
We believe that with one voice and one action, human trafficking can truly be abolished from human history.
