Category: News
Date: 03.10.2005
Printable version
The number of Nigerian women held in British jails on drugs charges has increased almost six-fold in three years, Government figures supplied to the 大象传媒 News website reveal.
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On 30 June this year, 85 of the 151 Nigerian women in custody in the UK were being held for carrying drugs or other related offences. In 2002 there were just 15 out of 29.
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Foreign women make up 18% of the female prison population and about 60% of them are held on drugs offences.
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The shift comes two years after an outcry over the number of Jamaican female drugs mules in British jails, which climbed to more than 440 in 2002.
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That number has now fallen to 136, following changes to policy regarding the early release of foreign prisoners and Operation Airbridge, a joint UK and Jamaican scheme that saw people-scanners installed at airports on Jamaica.
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Foreign prisoner support charity Hibiscus led a Foreign Office-backed educational programme in Jamaica aimed at potential female targets of drugs traffickers.
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Its director Olga Heaven says drugs barons have probably simply moved their trade to elsewhere in the Caribbean and West Africa.
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She says: "I believe since the campaign started in Jamaica there has been a direct shift to Trinidad and also Nigeria - Nigeria even more so.
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"Guys who organise these people always try to stay one step ahead of the people who are deterring them so they will look and see what is going on and move accordingly.
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"Women with children get caught up in a situation where they begin to borrow money for schooling, or for paying rent, and they are not employable because of lack of training.
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"They don't have another way out of their situation, carrying drugs is their last resort."
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Alice Ukoko, director of campaign group Women of Nigeria International, says there will be more cases if poverty in Nigeria remains unaddressed.
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She says: "All this is happening because there is a lack of good government, a low level of awareness, economic hardship and hopelessness on the ground.
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"Nigerians have reached a situation where we don't know what law and order means. You just do things that you think will bring you money, whether it's in the law or not.
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"It's like you have a sore that is so small but you refuse to deal with it and it gets bigger and bigger. In two years' time that figure will double."
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HM Revenue and Customs says it cannot prove a link between the decline in Jamaica and the rise in Nigeria, but says its successful joint initiative in Jamaica has freed up resources to enable it to tackle the problem in other "risk areas", such as West Africa.
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Notes to Editors
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