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By Lawrence Enyoghasu
The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) on Wednesday warned parents and guardians to be careful with people who present themselves as foreign football club agents to trafficked youths to Europe for exploitation.
The agency’s Director, Public Enlightenment, Josiah Emerole, gave the warning at a training for journalists on standard reporting template organised through the Action Against Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants (A-TIPSOM), funded by the European Union (EU) and implemented by the International and Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policies (FIIAPP), held in Asaba, the Delta State Capital.
Emerole also said that many football agents who present themselves as agents sometimes turn out to be trafficked abroad for exploitation purposes. And to make it real they ask parents of such boys and girls to pay for their travelling documents to make it look real that they want to make life better for them in Europe.
Football Trafficking is exploitation, particularly from South America, Africa to Europe, there are some Nigerian footballer who got involved in the tracfficking in the past, all they are doing was to exploit the young girls and boys under the pretense of linking them with foreign clubs in Europe.
He decried the increase in football Trafficking in Africa and the world globally, he said 15 thousands children are trafficked into Europe under the pretence of linking them with football club. The figure is not Nigeria but a global one.
“Traffickers are coming up with all manners of routes and methods to traffick people out of the country for their own gain, parents falls into the traffickers trapped because they want their children to play football and succeed abroad.
“Some of the agents always talk about football club that doesn’t exist, but youths who are eager to travel out don’t bother to check if such clubs exist.
Another aspect Mr. Emerole also talked about was the area of social media trafficking.
Traffickers have device a new means by using social media into their business by recruiting youths to exploiting them, many of the youths have been approached and lured through WhatsApp, YouTube, Twitter with the promise of better life abroad.
“There was no doubt that social media has contributed negatively to high of cases involving human trafficking and Smuggling of Migrants. Most of the offers the traffickers lure people with are mostly not true but abandoned them when they get to their fate.”
