NAPTIP arrests 538 suspects for human trafficking

THE National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, has disclosed the arrest of 538 suspects charged with human trafficking and recruitment of young girls and boys for sexual exploitation and exploitative labour.

Director-General of NAPTIP, Dame Julie Okah-Donli, made this known on Friday at an interactive session with newsmen in Abuja on the activities of the agency in 2019.

She also revealed that not less than 876 victims of human trafficking were rescued in 2019 alone, out of the 739 cases reported while conviction of 16 persons was secured in the outgoing year.

She noted that this arrest, rescue, empowerment, prosecution and conviction within the year 2019, has lifted the global rating of the country by migrating it from Tier 2 watch list to Tier 2 in the United States of America trafficking in persons rating for the year 2019.

Okah-Donli, vowed to rid Nigeria of the heinous activities of human traffickers, saying the agency would scale up its advocacy and sensitization programme by engaging all stakeholders and partners across the country.

She insisted that everyone travelling outside the country with under-age persons or for unskilled labour must obtain a clearance certificate from NAPTIP before embarking on such journey, saying the agency had discovered that the traffickers now use the school excursion and football academies as a decoy to traffic young boys and girls.

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Okah-Donli, particularly warned Nigerians ahead of the 2020 Olympics games coming up in Tokyo between July and August, as one of such sporting fiesta where the traffickers capitalize to recruit their unsuspecting victims.

She said: “So far, we already have schools writing to us for clearance checks for excursion or one sporting event or the other. This also requires a lot of enlightenment because people should know that everyone needs to get this clearance.

“The agents need to be enlightened because they are the ones who facilitate irregular migration for young boys and girls who want to travel out for unskilled labour. They should know that they need to get the clearance and officially notify the NIS who are the ones at the airport, because even with the visa and passport, they are not allowed to travel without the clearance,” she said.

She added that the management of NAPTIP would engage leadership of the various levels of government in its bid to eradicate human trafficking in the country, stressing Task Forces on human trafficking would be set up in the remaining states of the Federation.

She further disclosed that NAPTIP in collaboration with the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD)) and the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) mainstreamed trafficking in persons issues into the minimum standards (curriculum) of Colleges of Education in Nigeria.

“As a follow-up, no fewer than 400 teachers of Colleges of Education have been trained by personnel of NAPTIP and NCCE on those issues and methodology to adopt in teaching them.

“It is important to note that these will be taught as a General Studies Course in Colleges of Education from January 2020. This activity is part of deepening awareness creating programme to ensure that children from cradle understand issues of human trafficking,” she said.

The NAPTIP boss decried the appalling condition of thousands young Nigerian trapped in Mali, saying the agency had undertaken advocacy and working of Mali with a view to “assessing the exploitative conditions of Nigerian victims of human trafficking trapped in the mining areas of the country, profiling them and working out the modalities for evacuating them back to Nigeria”.