From Scholastica Onyeka, Makurdi
The growing incidence of human trafficking in Nigeria is a source of concern to many. According to National Agency for the prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, (NAPTIP), Nigeria still remains a source, transit and destination country for trafficking in human beings.
Information indicates that large numbers of Nigerian young girls and women are still stranded in foreign countries such as Mali, Niger, Ghana, Cote de Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Morocco and Libya, where they are subjected to sexual and labour exploitation while going to Europe. In Mali alone, no fewer than 25,000 Nigerian women and girls are trapped, living in shanties in the mining areas where they are sexually exploited.
Recently, the Director General of NAPTIP, Dr Fatima Waziri-Azi, lamented that human trafficking in Nigeria has not only attained epidemic proportion but that Nigeria is in crisis of it. She was equally worried that internal trafficking in the guise of domestic servitude and forced labour has become a big crisis in the country.
Worried by this trend, Network Against Child Trafficking, Abuse and Child Labour (NACTAL) with support from USAID Nigeria’s Strengthening Advocacy and Local Engagement, (SCALE), organized a “Countering Trafficking in Persons (CTIP) training for media practitioners as well as religious, traditional and community leaders in Benin, Edo State capital. Participants were drawn from nine states including Benue, Lagos, Taraba and Sokoto.
The training which held in two segments beginning with the media from 5th December to 7th and the traditional leaders from 8th to 9th, 2022, had several objective among which were to increase the knowledge of the media practitioners on the menace of trafficking in persons, intensify public awareness campaign against TIP among journalists and strengthen their capacity to create contents that report trafficking cases.
NACTAL also aimed at educating religious and traditional leaders on the TIP terms, emerging trends and prevention and most importantly, build their capacity in identifying traffickers, victims and survivors of trafficking.
The Sun reports that the training was an eye opener to most participants as the resource persons, Mr Nduka Nwanwanne, NAPTIP Commander, Edo State, Nasir Isah, and staff of the organization took participants through terms, trends, causes, nature and character of TIP. It also provided an ample opportunity for stakeholders to x-ray the negative impacts of trafficking in persons in the society.
The participants comprising traditional and religious leaders, said the training brought the issues closer helping them to identify the wrongs in everyday normal life. They also identified insecurity and parental pressures among others as factors aiding Trafficking in Persons, (TIP), especially among displaced persons and other youngsters in Benue and other parts of the country.
According to them, trafficking in persons, particularly the girl – child, child labour and other inhuman exploitation in Nigeria has assumed a worrisome dimension in places like Benue, Edo, Taraba, Sokoto and others, following scale of insecurity, pressures from parents, economic hardship, poverty, ignorance among others.
While they agreed that there was need for stakeholders collaborative action, they took turns to make commitments vowing to heighten sensitization, create awareness and advocate policy makers, to stamp out the scourge of human trafficking in their respective domain.
Speaking to our correspondent, a traditional ruler from the Idoma kingdom in Benue State, the Ad’Ohimini, Idoma Area Traditional Council, HRH John Ochayi, described the trafficking situation in Benue as very pathetic.
In Benue, official figures from State Emergency Management Agency, SEMA, puts the number of displaced person at over two million with most of them being women and children.
Ochayi lamented the plight of thousands of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) within the state where children, women, youths and the elderly are affected and have been living in unfavourable conditions in the camps.
According to him, “situations like that where people are jampacked, not properly cared for, especially that government alone cannot care for them, because of that they are disadvantaged, there is the tendency of people taking advantage of that situation.
“You see girls roaming the streets and because of the hardship they are exposed to, they fall victim to predators and issue of abuses in different categories – raping and child pregnancies come up. These have really affected the state.
“Insecurity has affected the state and that is why my participation in this workshop is germane because I have been equipped with the technicalities, especially some of the indicators that predisposes to trafficking. I’m better informed and as I go back, I will disseminate the information, serve as a watchdog and collaborate with relevant stakeholders to find solutions to this problems,” he said.
Also speaking, the Adutu Obi, in Benue State, Christopher Ijale, said the issue of child trafficking and child labour in Benue has become a reoccurring decimal and has taken a worrisome dimension.
He said: “If you go to some of our villages in Benue, there is nowhere you won’t find cases of trafficking. It is more alarming now that we have IDPs everywhere. Having being trained by NACTAL, I’m more equipped to go home, pass the information, create awareness and sensitize my colleagues so that together we can fight this evil.”
The chief executive officer of Hope for Healthy Life Foundation, (HohLiF), a non governmental organization based in Taraba State, Dr Tony Garba, said strengthening capacity of traditional and religious leaders to tackle issues of trafficking was a right step in the right direction.
Garba, who noted that trafficking is an issue of concern in Taraba State, also decried the culture of silence in community members and urged the people to report cases of trafficking to relevant authorities to enable them nip it in the bud.
He expressed joy that the training has exposed to new and emerging trends especially how technology is aiding and abetting trafficking in persons in the country, which he never knew before.
He said: “We were also exposed on the need to train and monitor our children to see who they are communicating with, especially on social media, to curtail their chances of being trafficked.
“That Nigeria is the source and destination in trafficking activities is also a big revelation to me. That means some people pass through Nigeria, some are camped here, some others are even exploited in Nigeria. I never knew that. So going forward, I will collaborate with stakeholders in my state to sensitize our people to mitigate the trend.”
Sir Humphrey Best Iriabe, the Secretary, Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Edo State chapter, told our correspondent that trafficking was very endemic in the state until the intervention of traditional and religious leaders as well as other organizations who have made efforts to stem the tide of human trafficking in the state.
He said Edo traditional rulers are in the forefront in intervening in issues of trafficking and expressed the confidence that they will continue to do so. He commended NACTAL for the training, saying it will go a long way to add value to the enlightenment they have been giving to the people to wipe away the scourge.
For Aminu Dikko Binji, the Marbudini Sarkin Yakin Binji, in Sokoto State, his community has already put in place measures to check cases of trafficking in person. He said their chief made a pronouncement that anyone caught in the act of trafficking will be exposed and ostracized.
He said: “In Binji local government area of Sokoto State, our chief made a law that whosoever is found culpable in any act of abusing women and children will be exposed, isolated from the community and he or she will not take part in activities of the community among other punishments.”
He also said child marriage has been banned in his domain as women deserves the right to grow to a ripe age before marriage, go to school, the right to choose their life partner and the right to be happy.
Aminu pledge to ensure more collaboration between NACTAL and the traditional institutions in Sokoto towards prevention, protection and rehabilitation of survivors of trafficking in his state.
He commended NACTAL for the training and said he will step down the knowledge and resensitize his people to watch out for perpetrators of the heinous crime.
He also pledged that he will ensure that religious leaders in his domain improve on their Friday sermons to include sensitizing the people on dangers and consequences of child trafficking.
From Lagos State, the chairman, Yewa Road CDA, Bello Wahab, who noted that his association has an already established structure of communication, pledged to use it and many other avenues to advocate against the menace. He blamed the cosmopolitan nature of Lagos State for the height of trafficking in the city, assuring that the government is equal to the task.
The traditional and religious leaders who described trafficking as “evil” pledged their commitment to step down the information to the local communities where these young girls and boys are recruited from so that parents and community members can be more aware.
The President of NACTAL, Abdulganiyu Abubakar, said the training is part of series of activities under the USAID Nigeria Strengthening Civic Advocacy and Local Engagement, SCALE projects, aimed at improving coordination and implementation capacity of stakeholders to reduce human trafficking and gender based violence in Nigerian communities.
Abubakar said NACTAL was worried concerning the effects of the heinous act on Nigeria and Nigerians, saying TIP has has brought about stigma and discrimination on survivors, their families and friends, communities, states and country at large.
He expressed the hope that the training of over 30 media practitioners and over 30 traditional and religious leaders from across the country will build a critical mass of advocates across all sectors from the formal, non formal and community settings for prevention and control of trafficking in Nigeria.
The participants were trained on TIP terms, emerging trends and prevention, build participants’ capacity in identifying victims/survivors of trafficking and traffickers, and increase reportage of TIP cases through a well-coordinated reporting pathways, amongst others.
The training familiarized participants with the SCALE project, basic concepts in trafficking in persons, root causes, emerging trends and effects of trafficking; survivors and traffickers’ identification, and existing laws and policies against trafficking in persons.
NACTAL, through the project, is strengthening civic advocacy and stakeholders engagements through trainings of over 200 other stakeholders include security agencies to ensure they stamp trafficking out of the country. At the end of the training for media practitioners and traditional leaders, participants were given certificates and charged to be change agents.