Esohe Aghatise

Dr. Esohe Aghatise, an international lawyer, began working to help women who had been trafficked in 1998 when she founded her organization: IROKO.

Dr. Aghatise founded the organization with one goal in mind: to combat violence against women, and to assist women who had been trafficked, specifically from Nigeria to Italy, for prostitution. The organization provides aftercare, counseling, legal services, housing, vocational training, and even helps women to find employment. The organization also engages in awareness building, providing curricula and conducting seminars about human trafficking throughout Italy. The organization has worked to highlight, in several high schools in Turin, the evils of human trafficking, and emphasizes that the demand defines and encourages the supply of women and girls for prostitution. In 2007, they had planned a new program into Nigeria as well. Dr. Aghatise was given a Trafficking in Persons Hero Award in 2007 in recognition of her work with IROKO. She had also been appointed as an expert In trafficking to the UN Division for the Advancement of Women Experts’ Group Meeting.

Since 2007, she has continued to work extensively with anti-trafficking efforts in Italy. She sits on the Board of Directors for the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, and is an anti-trafficking consultant to Equality Now. She remains active with IROKO. In 2007, IROKO organized a conference on trafficking in Nigeria, and in 2010 and 2011 the NGO engaged in an educational campaign throughout Italy and Nigeria. The NGO also trains other NGO workers, social workers, activists, and abolitionists. In 2007, she was honored as a "TIP Report Hero Acting to End Modern Slavery" in recognition of her efforts to combat human trafficking.

In the 2014 TIP Report, Italy was listed as a Tier 1 country. It is a source, destination, and transit country for both forced labor and sex trafficking. Some 2,000 children are still exploited on the streets for sexual purposes, and forced labor can be found in many different areas of Italy. The government combats trafficking, however, improvement is needed in the area of victim identification.