Surge in Child Trafficking in Nigeria “a national emergency”, Nigerian Catholic Priest

Abuja, 28 August, 2025 / 9:20 PM

A Nigerian Catholic Priest has described the growing trafficking of secondary school children across the country as “a national emergency” that requires urgent and coordinated action from government institutions, faith leaders, schools, and families.

Speaking to ACI Africa on Monday, August 25, on the sidelines of a thanksgiving Mass marking his 40th Priestly ordination anniversary, Fr. George Ehusani warned that the trend poses a threat to the future of children in the West African nation.

“This is a national emergency. We are dealing with a crisis that threatens the future of our children and the soul of our nation. When teenagers who should be in classrooms are lured, moved, and exploited by criminal networks, the entire community is diminished,” Fr. Ehusani told ACI Africa.

The Executive Director of the Lux Terra Leadership Foundation said he had received reports from educators, Parish workers, and community volunteers showing a troubling pattern in which traffickers target adolescents during and after school hours, often through acquaintances or intermediaries on social media.

“The traffickers are not ghosts. They are people who understand the vulnerabilities of our young ones. They promise scholarships, jobs, modeling opportunities, or travel. By the time parents and teachers discover the truth, the damage is done,” Fr. Ehusani told ACI Africa during the August 25 interview.

He urged head teachers and guardians to treat unexplained absences, sudden gifts, or secretive online relationships as possible red flags.

The Nigerian Priest appealed to school proprietors and public education authorities to make anti-trafficking education part of routine student orientation. 

He said schools should maintain updated visitor logs, train security staff to recognize deceptive tactics, and keep close partnerships with community police units and child protection officers. 

“A safe school is not only defined by fences and gates. It requires vigilant adults who know what to look for and how to respond,” the Nigerian Catholic Priest said.

He recommended short-term measures such as regular safety talks each term, anonymous suggestion boxes, and a widely publicized helpline list for students.

Fr. Ehusani noted that economic stress, displacement, and weak community oversight continue to fuel child trafficking in Nigeria. 

“Poverty is a gateway for predators, but poverty does not excuse indifference,” the founder of the Psycho-Spiritual Institute (PSI), a Catholic entity that specializes in psycho-trauma healing said.

He condemned the exploitation of the poor, pointing out that traffickers deliberately target vulnerable families. 

“It is poor girls in the villages. It is poor girls that are their target. They hardly traffic children of ministers or senators, or big rich company executives. They go into the villages to look for poor people, and then they promise them heaven on earth, and then they easily sweep them,” he explained.

Describing trafficking as “an evil enterprise,” Fr. Ehusani urged traffickers and their sponsors to abandon the trade. 

“It is a very painful thing, and we need to constantly speak to whoever is involved in this kind of evil trade to stop it. You hurt the poor in this way. God is seeing it, and people should not bringa  curse upon themselves,” he said.

The Nigerian Catholic Official further condemned the growing cases of organ harvesting among trafficked victims.

 “Can you imagine taking a 14-year-old out of this country and harvesting the kidney or other vital organ without the person knowing? It’s a very evil thing that we are told is spreading,” he lamented.

On the role of parents, Fr. Ehusani said, “Clearly, there is a failure of parenting. There is too much greed and avarice in Nigerian society today. The level of greed and avarice is too high, which is why a secondary school or a university child will bring an expensive car to the house, and the parents are not asking.” 

He warned that many parents encourage the cycle by ignoring suspicious wealth. 

“This is one generation where parents are expecting their children, who are still in school, to bring them money and to buy them things. So parents should know that they are destroying their own future if they push their children into this,” Fr. Ehusani said.

He also pointed to the work of his Lux Terra Psycho-Spiritual Institute in training and equipping vulnerable groups with life skills.