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CHILD TRAFFICKING AND SEXUAL EXPLOITATION IN MOTOR PARKS AND MARKETS: A CASE STUDY OF LAGOS GARAGE AND OYINGBO MARKET IN MAINLAND LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, LAGOS STATE

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Motor parks and sprawling urban markets in Nigeria have quietly transformed into recruitment and transit hubs for child trafficking and sexual exploitation. Lagos Garage (also known as Oshodi/Iddo motor park complex) and Oyingbo Market, both located in Mainland Local Government Area, sit at the heart of Lagos’s transportation and commercial arteries. Every day, thousands of long-distance buses, danfo minibuses, and trucks converge here, carrying passengers from every state in Nigeria and neighbouring West African countries. This constant flow of people, cash, and anonymity creates perfect cover for traffickers (UNICEF Nigeria & NAPTIP, 2024; Adepelumi, 2022).

Children aged 8–17mostly girls, but increasingly boysare lured, coerced, or sold into domestic servitude, street hawking, commercial sexual exploitation, and forced labour. Many arrive at Lagos Garage believing they are en route to legitimate jobs as shop assistants or housemaids, only to be handed over to brothel madams in Oyingbo, Agege, or Ajegunle, or trafficked onward to Libya and Europe via the Kano–Agadez route (Ehindero & Adebiyi, 2023; NAPTIP, 2025). Boys are frequently retained in the parks themselves as loaders (alaroos), beggars, or drug runners, and subjected to sexual violence by older males in exchange for food or protection (Olayinka & Adebayo, 2021).

A 2024 joint rapid assessment by NAPTIP and the Lagos State Ministry of Youth and Social Development documented 187 suspected child-trafficking cases originating from or transiting through Lagos Garage and Oyingbo Market in just six months. Of these, 68 % involved sexual exploitation, 24 % forced labour, and 8 % ritual purposes (NAPTIP, 2025). Park touts, bus conductors, and market loaders act as spotters and middlemen, earning commissions of ₦20,000–₦100,000 per child delivered (Adepelumi, 2022). Madams and “chairmen” in Oyingbo openly recruit underage girls under the guise of “apprenticeship” in hairdressing or petty trading, then move them into brothels along nearby Railway Line or Ijora Badia (Ehindero & Adebiyi, 2023).

Poverty, broken family structures, and deceptive recruitment promises drive supply. Agents visit rural communities in Ebonyi, Benue, Cross River, and northern states offering parents ₦50,000–₦150,000 “placement fees” for their daughters or sons (UNICEF Nigeria & NAPTIP, 2024). Once in Lagos, children are stripped of phones, threatened with curses or police arrest, and trapped in debt bondage (Olayinka & Adebayo, 2021).

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Lagos Garage and Oyingbo Market have become Nigeria’s most notorious open-air child-trafficking marketplaces, yet they operate in plain sight. Children are bought, sold, and sexually exploited daily while law-enforcement presence remains minimal and often compromised (NAPTIP, 2025). Victims are highly visiblesleeping under stalls, hawking at night, or soliciting customersyet interventions are rare and uncoordinated. The Lagos State Child Protection Policy exists on paper, but motor-park unions and market associations resist external monitoring, claiming it interferes with “legitimate business” (Adepelumi, 2022). Without detailed mapping of trafficking routes, recruitment methods, and exploitation sites within these two locations, thousands of children continue to disappear into sexual slavery and forced labour every year.

1.3 Objectives of the Study

General Objective To examine the patterns, processes, and actors involved in child trafficking and sexual exploitation within Lagos Garage and Oyingbo Market, Mainland LGA, Lagos State.

Specific Objectives

1. To map the recruitment, transportation, and exploitation pathways operating in these locations.
2. To document the roles of motor-park touts, market traders, madams, and security agents in the trafficking chain.
3. To assess the scale and characteristics of child victims transiting through or retained in these sites.
4. To recommend practical, park and market-based prevention and rescue strategies.

1.4 Significance of the Study

This research will produce the first micro-level ethnographic and quantitative profile of child trafficking inside Lagos’s largest transport and commercial hubs. Findings will equip NAPTIP, Lagos State Government, and civil-society partners with precise intervention pointsspecific bus bays, loading zones, and brothel clustersfor joint rescue operations (NAPTIP, 2025). By exposing the economic incentives that sustain the trade, the study strengthens the case for licensing reforms, union accountability, and community vigilance systems that can disrupt trafficking at source (UNICEF Nigeria & NAPTIP, 2024).

1.5 Research Questions

1. How are children recruited and moved through Lagos Garage and Oyingbo Market?
2. Who are the key facilitators and beneficiaries of child trafficking and sexual exploitation in these locations?
3. What are the demographic profiles and experiences of child victims identified in these sites?
4. Which immediate, low-cost measures can disrupt trafficking networks within motor parks and markets?

1.6 Hypotheses

H₀₁: Involvement of motor-park touts and market loaders has no significant relationship with child-trafficking incidents in the study area. H₀₂: Presence of children engaged in night hawking or sleeping in market stalls shows no correlation with sexual exploitation.

1.7 Scope and Delimitation

The study is limited to Lagos Garage (Oshodi–Iddo motor park complex) and Oyingbo Market in Mainland LGA during 2025. It covers children aged 8–17 involved in trafficking for sexual exploitation and forced labour. Adult prostitution and voluntary migration are excluded.

1.8 Definition of Key Terms

• Child Trafficking – Recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring, or receipt of persons under 18 by means of deception, coercion, or debt for exploitation (Palermo Protocol, 2000; Child Rights Act, 2003).
• Sexual Exploitation – Use of children in prostitution, pornography, or other sexual activities for remuneration or advantage.
• Lagos Garage and Oyingbo Market – Major interstate motor park and daily market in Mainland LGA serving as trafficking nodes.

References

Adepelumi, P. A. (2022). Child trafficking in Nigerian motor parks: A study of recruitment and exploitation mechanisms in Lagos and Kano. African Journal of Criminology and Justice Studies, 15(1 1), 67–89.

Ehindero, E. A., & Adebiyi, A. A. (2023). From parks to brothels: Child sexual exploitation networks in Lagos metropolis. Journal of Human Trafficking, 9(2), 178–195. https://doi.org/10.1080/23322705.2022.2087654

NAPTIP (National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons). (2025). Child trafficking hotspots report: Lagos State 2024–2025. Abuja: NAPTIP.

Olayinka, O. T., & Adebayo, A. M. (2021). Street children and sexual exploitation in Lagos motor parks: Voices from the margins. Child Abuse & Neglect, 118, Article 105138. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2021.105138

UNICEF Nigeria & NAPTIP. (2024). Children on the move: Trafficking and exploitation pathways in Nigeria. Abuja: UNICEF.