Influence of Poverty on Human Trafficking in Awka South Local Government Area of Anambra State, Nigeria

This study investigated the relationship between poverty and human trafficking in Awka South Local Government Area of Anambra State. The study objective was to ascertain how poverty influences human trafficking in Awka south Local Government Area of Anambra State. In Nigeria, high poverty rate is deemed to be one of the drivers of human trafficking. High level of poverty in the country cause families to give away their children to foster parents who sometimes sell these children to traffickers. Traffickers usually promise parents and desperate youths easy financial freedom in other cities or countries, and oftentimes they discover that they have fallen into deception trap and tend to face harsh conditions in foreign lands which they have to endure if they must survive. The theoretical thrust of this study is the Marxian theory associated with the German Philosopher Karl Marx (1818 – 1883). The Marxian theory draws attention to the polarisation of society into upper and lower classes and how this leads to class struggle. The upper class who also forms the ruling class lords it over the lower class made up of the ordinary people by appropriating more than their fair share of the common wealth thereby condemning a greater majority of the people to poverty. Cross – sectional survey research design was adopted for the study. This is a design in which information is collected from only a fraction of the population known as a sample selected in such a way as to represent the whole population. The instrument of data collection was the questionnaire used to collect quantitative data. Multi – stage sampling procedure comprising of simple random and systematic sampling techniques was used to select two hundred and four (204) respondents for the study. Data generated through the questionnaires was analysed using frequency tables and simple percentages while the hypothesis that was formulated for the study was tested using the Chi-square () test statistic. The study found that poverty encourages human trafficking in Awka south Local Government Area of Anambra State. Based on this finding, the study recommends amongst others that government should empower families in Awka south Local Government Area to have access to regular sources of income.