Nigeria - Human trafficking rises sharply

An alarming rise has been recorded in the number of Nigerian girls trafficked to Italy. Last year 1,782 young girls from Nigeria arrived in Lampedusa, compared to 166 in 2007, human rights organisations say. Lampedusa, an Italian island 205 km from the Italian coast, located between Tunisia and Sicily, is used as a holding centre for migrants, particularly from Africa. Human trafficking has become the third biggest source of income for criminal organisations globally, following drug and arms, according to a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) published earlier this year. Close to 80 percent of people trafficked, mostly women, are sexually exploited, the report says.