Police returns 116 trafficked children to Benin

Nigeria's police authorities on Friday returned 116 children brought into the country to provide cheap labour to the neighbouring Benin Republic, where they are believed to have originated, officials said. Nigeria's police chief, Tafa Balogun, also handed over five suspected traffickers who were said to be specialised in smuggling children from Benin into Nigeria, in a ceremony at Seme, the main border crossing point between the two countries. "All those handed over were boys aged between five and 17 years," a police spokesman told IRIN. They had all been engaged in crushing stones at quarries located in the outskirts of Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital some 100 kilometres north of Lagos, Nigeria's biggest city, he said. Police officials said their investigations revealed that many of the children were procured with the consent of their parents with the promise of annual fees of about CFA 20,000 (US $36.42) and other gifts. On arrival in Nigeria, the children were deployed to hard labour and were poorly fed, with token fees of 200 naira (US $1.56) a month, the police said. Nigeria human rights activists who alerted the police about the plight of the children working in the quarries said many of them had been held for over five years against their will. Bose Akinnolu, a social worker familiar with the case, said about nine children who died during the period were buried at the work sites without their families being informed. The children were returned under the terms of an agreement signed by Benin and Nigeria in August to curb cross-border crime. The agreement was signed after Nigeria shut its western border for one week alleging that Benin was not doing enough to stop criminals operating into Nigeria from its territory. Last week Benin, under the same agreement, extradited to Nigeria Hammani Tidjani, a Niger national who was resident in Cotonou, Benin. Tidjani is alleged by Nigerian police to be the brain behind cross-border bandits who raid Nigeria from Benin for luxury cars, which are then re-exported to other parts of West Africa or even outside Africa.