Overtime, many groups that migrated. the first

Overtime, universities in Europe havealso embarked upon a recruitment drive to attract Nigerian students.

Educationhas remained an important reason for Nigerian emigration, and labour migrationfrom Nigeria has also become increasingly feminine (Adepoju, 2000: 386). A significantgood number of Nigerians yearly apply for refugee status in Europeancountries. According to Carling 2004, in his work he noted that in 2004, Nigerians were the fifth largest group of asylum seekers in Europe. Because ofits size and its current relative stability, Nigerians have less chance ofobtaining asylum status than those of other ECOWAS countries which are directlyaffected by civil war.

The issue surrounding the traffickingof female Nigerian sex workers to Italy and other European countries hasreceived substantial attention (Carling, 2006). Most of these prospectivefuture sex hawkers are recruited fromthe southern Edo state. For these prostitutes, the most important country of destinationis Italy, where it is believed that as many as 10, 000 Nigerian prostitutes reside.

Other destinations these sex hawkers routes to includes Spain, Netherlands anda range of other countries (Carling, 2006). As a response to Europe’s highdemand for low-skilled workforce in the 1980s in agriculture and services, Nigeriansbegan migrating travelling toItaly; these women were only one of many groups that migrated. The firstprostitutes tended had thepropensity to work independently, but in the early 1990s, immigration restrictions made prospective potentialemigrants increasingly dependent on large loans in order toso as topay for their journey, of which this providedan opportunity opening fortraffickers (Carling, 2006). A potential sex hawker’s initial contact withtraffickers is often made through a relative, friend, or other familiar person, who puts her in contact with a ‘ madam’ who organizes and finances the journey.

The costs charges mayrange from US$40 000 to US$100 000. The migrants and the madam conclude withan ‘ pact’agreement’, religiously sealed by a traditional chief priest, which obliges enchants debtrepayment in exchange for a safe passage expeditionto Europe. In Europe, the women are under the control of anothermadam, a counterpart of the madam in Nigeria.

Most of these womenrealize that they are going to work as prostitutes, but do not necessarily knowabout the arduous tough conditionsunder which (street) prostitutes have tomustwork, nor the magnitudesizeof their debt (Carling, 2006). However, this work does offer some ‘ career’prospects. Within one or two years when they can repay their migration debtbased on the agreement, these women are essentially free, and it is fairlycommon for them to become a supervisor of other prostitutes and, at the longrun they may become “ madam” themselves. According to Carling (2006), hehighlighted that this prospect likelihood ofupward mobility is an incentive to comply with the pactagreement, and that the strong element of mutual benefit between traffickers andtrafficked women makes it difficult strenuousto reduce this form of trafficking.

According to a recent study, in Kano state, traffickers successfully exploited tookadvantage of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca to traffic children, men and women for different exploitative purposes; for prostitution, beggingand all kind of domestic work (Ehindero et al., 2006). However, inlight ofbearing in mindthe attention currently being given to trafficking, it is important to stresspointout that, for Nigerian migration, trafficking seems the concessionrather than the rule. The large majority ofMostNigerians migrate voluntarily, and even in the case of trafficking it is clearobvious that the line betweenvoluntary and forced migration is blurred. It is also important to make a distinctiondiscrepancy between trafficking andsmuggling.

While many previously migrated on their own initiative, increasingrestrictions have made more and more migrants dependmoreenton the services of smugglers in crossing borders. Whereas Althoughuntil the 1990s migrants to Europe predominantly used aircraftslinks;, visa requirements and increasing immigration controls at air- likewiseandseaports, seem to have led to an increasing reliance on trans-Saharan, overlandroutes to the Maghreb countries, and in particular to Morocco, from whereNigerians and other sub-Saharan Africans attempt to cross the Mediterranean tosouthern Europe. Another now-popularprevalentroute is via the Atlantic Ocean and the Canary Islands (de Haas, 2006b). Scattered Dispersed evidenceon the origin of Nigerian immigrants in Europe and the US stronglysuggests that the majority originate from the relatively developed and denselypopulated southern provinces. The Ibo from the southeast and the Yoruba fromthe southwest, and, to a lesser extent the Edo and the Ogoni ethnic groups, seem to constitute the majority ofgreater part ofNigerian migrants in the UK (Hernandez-Coss, et al. 2007). The majoritybulk of the Nigerianstrafficked to Europe seem to originate from Edo state, and Benin Cityin particularCity. specifically.

Edo and, to a lessersomeextent, the Delta states are known as the main origin sourceareas of sex workers. The Hausa and other northern groups seemrelatively more preoccupied with migration to the Gulf States. Thepredominantly Muslim character of the north as well as the position of thenorthern city of Kano as a major air hub in the hadj (the Muslim pilgrimage toMecca), might partially explain this connection. Reliable data on Nigerian migration is lackingnotsufficient. Nigerian authorities do not register or estimateemigration, which presumably apparentlyreflects a low interest in the issue. Also, receiving countrystatistics are incompletedeficient, as many countries do not include naturalized and second-generation Nigerians inimmigrant statistics, and because of the substantial presence of irregularmigrants.

It was estimated in Nigeria’s 2005 Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper(PRSP) that more than four hundred thousand Nigerians (mostly highly educated)have emigrated to Europe and the United States (NNPC, 2004), but the empiricalbasis for this claim remains unclear. According to some embassies, at least 1million Nigerians are living in the US and the UK, and another 500 000 inGermany and Canada. Hernandez-Coss et al. (2007) even claim that 5 millionNigerians are currently living abroad.

However, these estimates lack empiricalunderpinning.