THE Federal Government has been urged to extend the whistle-blowing policy in the recovery of looted funds to the fight against human trafficking in persons in Nigeria.
Director-General of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), Barrister Julie Okah-Donli, made the call on Thursday in Abuja at her maiden news conference to unveil her plans for the agency.
She disclosed that NAPTIP under her watch would employ “name and shame” policy to ensure that those who get involved in the nefarious activities of the modern slave trade do not have hiding place anywhere across the globe.
She disclosed that since inception NAPTIP has rescued about 10,685 victims of human trafficking for sexual exploitation and exploitative labour both within Nigeria and in foreign countries.
She noted that the agency has so far received a total of 4,755 cases and investigated 3,407 while the agency has secured conviction of a total of 321 persons.
Okah-Donli, noted that following the success recorded by the Federal government through the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in recovery of billions of cash buried in the ground by some treasurery looters, the whistle-blower policy would encourage Nigerians to volunteer information to security agencies on the heinous activities of human traffickers.
She said: “We need a lot of collaboration especially in the area of intelligence gathering. On this note, I will appeal to government to kindly expand the scope of the whistle-blowing policy to accommodate the crime of human trafficking.
“If this policy is succeeding in the fight against corruption, it should also succeed when deployed to detect and prevent trafficking in persons. We must do all to protect the lives and dignity of our next generation who are being destroyed now by criminally minded individuals.”
Okah-Donli, revealed the agency was already working on a proposal that (5) five per cent of assets forfeited by the traffickers could be given to the whistle-blower while also ensuring their protection.
She said: “The era of trading on our promising youths as commodities is over and all machinery shall be put in place to ensure that our youths have secure future.
“We shall increase our surveillance around the known endemic communities and villages coupled with a reloaded sensitisation and public enlightenment campaign,” she said.
She said investigation by the agency has revealed that human trafficking has moved from the era of analogue and person-to-person recruitment of victims to a well orchestrated criminal network that is designed to deceive even the best operatives.
She, therefore, said her administration would move with vigour, techniques, skills and expertise to nab any human trafficker, from the point of conceiving the idea to the point of exploitation.
She noted that apart deployment of technology to counter the sophistication in the operation of the human traffickers, NAPTIP would deploy its operatives to airports, land borders and seaports among others, in order to burst their activities at the bud.
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