Abstract

Human and Sex trafficking is a contemporary social problem which is currently causing disquiet globally. Many victims suffer a wide range of human rights abuses including confinement, actual bondage, physical and sexual assaults. Through human and sex trafficking, a nation's active population is exploited especially as young people are unable to reach their full potential. This has critical impact on development challenges especially for developing origin countries notably in Sub Sahara Africa where a large number of young girls and women are trafficked from for sex work in Europe annually. This research thesis uses qualitative research methods, specifically life stories, to explore the relationship between sex trafficking and social and economic conditions in the South-south region of Nigeria, with a particular focus on poverty. In the process it also interrogates the adequacy of understandings and responses to, the problem and explores tensions between Western framings of the phenomena and the lived experience of people vulnerable to human trafficking South-south Nigeria.