By Tim Cocks

KAMPALA, 21 June (Reuters) - Easier to conceal than drugs or guns but just as lucrative, the global trade in human trafficking will flourish as long as rich nations close their borders to desperate migrants, experts said on Thursday.

"It's now a very lucrative business," Mohammed Babandede, head of Nigeria's anti-trafficking police unit, told Reuters during a U.N. conference in Kampala on human trafficking.

"It's low risk -- because you're not moving drugs, often no one knows there's anything illegal."

Trafficking comes in many forms -- trading girls or women into forced prostitution, selling child labour or moving would-be economic migrants across borders.

The U.N. estimates the numbers of people trafficked each year range from anything between 600,000 and 4 million.

Analysts think it is growing as more inhabitants from poor countries seek work in rich nations.

The problem is acute in west and north Africa, where thousands of migrants in small boats risk death to make their way to southern Europe.

Babandede said traffickers were increasingly preying on unemployed Africans looking for opportunities abroad.

"They are made to pay money for travel. Those who have reached Italy, for instance, pay up to 50-60,000 euros ($67-80,000)," he said.

Most women became sex workers in a bid to pay their debts and struggled to pay rent or heating, he said.

Europe's tough stance on immigration, with rightwing governments from France to Austria cracking down on migrants, had fuelled the illicit people trade, he said.

"The recent trend in the West is tighter on immigration. The more you tighten it, the more people are smuggled and trafficked."

Richard Danziger, head of the trafficking division of the International Organisation for Migration, said industrialised countries realised they needed migrant workers, owing to changing demographics and ageing populations.

"The trick is to manage migration flows to contribute to economies in destination countries," he told Reuters. "But popular opinion in Europe right now is xenophobic, anti-immigration."

Danziger said it was up to European governments to send out a message of acceptance of migrants to tackle trafficking.

Silke Albert, trafficking expert at the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, said few countries had clear laws on trafficking -- many did not recognise it as a crime.

She added that it was now the third biggest illicit trade, after drugs and firearms.

AlertNet news is provided by