Many Benue girls in West African countries into sex slavery, says NAPTIP

Benue zonal command of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) has decried the worsening trafficking of girls from the state to West African countries for sex exploration.

Mrs Gloria Bai,  the zonal commander expressed the concern, on Tuesday, during the presentation of kits to rescued traffic victims in Makurdi, the state capital.

Forty of the rescued traffic victims had six months of training in a skills acquisition program aimed to rehabilitate them.

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• Many Benue girls in WA countries into sex slavery, says NAPTIP
• Many Benue girls in WA countries into sex slavery, says NAPTIP

She said that what used to be common in the state was labour trafficking but lamented that in recent times, many young Nigerian and Benue girls were now into sexual exploitation in Ghana and neighbouring countries.

She explained that between 2020 and 2022, three hundred and forty-three (343) traffic victims from the state had been rescued.

According to her,  “Between November 2020 and June 2022,  Three hundred and forty-three (343) traffic victims from Benue State were rescued while the command has secured 20 convictions with about 17 cases at various stages of prosecution in court.

“Before now, Benue was known for labour trafficking but we are having most of our children been trafficked to neighbouring  African countries, to Mali, Burkina Faso, Senegal, and even Ghana.

“Recently I just had three girls that escaped from Ghana who came back, we are still trying to see what we can do about the case. We have our girls very young and those three girls that came back told me that they have many Nigerian girls and Benue girls in Ghana into sexual exploitation.”

Mrs Bai said that five out of the  40 rescued traffic victims who had undergone various skills acquisition programs were empowered during the first phase of the program.

She thanked the Director-General of the Agency, Dr Fatima Waziri for the empowerment program which she said would help the victims to start a new life.

However, some of the victims handed with their start-up kits expressed joy saying it would go a long way to help them settle down and they commended NAPTIP for the support.