Africa’s Billion Pound Migrant Trail

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Africa’s migrant trade is among the most lucrative. Can it ever be stopped? Human trafficking in north and West Africa has become one of the most lucrative industries in the region. Some call it Africa’s new “slave trade” and for Assignment, Ben Zand reports from the countries involved. As the EU tries to cut the number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean, he investigates how millions of euros of EU funding are being spent– and whether its efforts could be leaving some migrants in an ever more dangerous limbo. He hears from the smugglers themselves who tell him how hard it will be to stop the trade, which employs thousands of people in some of the world’s poorest countries. He traces the smuggling route back from the coast of Libya, the gateway to Europe ; through to the ghettos in the deserts of Niger: all the way to the origins of the trade in small villages in Southern Nigeria, where young girls are forced into years of prostitution for the price of a ticket to Europe. Producer: Benjamin Zand, Joshua Baker, Estelle Doyle (Photo: Benjamin Zand stands with a crowd of migrants)