Perception of human trafficking victims about changes in their households' socioeconomic status in southwestern Nigeria

Human trafficking has been described as “modern day slavery” whereby people are coerced or deceived through promises of good jobs and career opportunities to move out of their communities to ‘work’ outside the country or in cities. This study was carried out to investigate the socioeconomic implications of human trafficking on the wellbeing of affected households. Multi stage sampling technique was used to select 250 out of 926 victims of trafficking identified working as domestic servants, plantation workers, food vendors, shop keepers and other forms of menial jobs in the study area. More than half (55.2%) of the respondents were females and mostly single (82.8%). Majority (90.8%) of the respondents earned a monthly income of less than ₦5000 before trafficking, which is an indication of their low level of income and poverty situation. Average family size of respondents was seven, 42.8% of them had only primary education while 31.2% went through adult literacy programmes. More than half (52.0%) of the respondents had low perception of their contribution to household socioeconomic status. There was a significant relationship between respondents’ frequency of contact with households and change in household wellbeing (r = 0.520, p = 0.000). The result also shows a significant difference between Oyo, Ogun and Lagos states in perception of victims on change in the households’ socioeconomic status (F=3.00, P<0.05).The study concluded that perception of trafficking victims about change in their households’ socioeconomic status is low as a result of less frequent contact with households during the trafficking period.