The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) has said that it has evolved five key approaches to tackle the menace of human trafficking in Nigeria.
The Zonal Commander, Lagos Zone, Mr. Daniel Afokolo who disclosed this at a stakeholders’ media engagement on human trafficking, human rights and law enforcement organized by RULAAC in conjunction with the Nigeria Policing Project (NPP) in Lagos on Tuesday listed the five key approaches to include; policy, partnership, prosecution, public enlightenment, protection and assistance.
Represented by the Head, Research and Programmes Department, NAPTIP, Comfort Sanni, Afokolo disclosed that the agency developed the approaches having realized that human trafficking had different dimensions.
He said, “Apart from trying to create awareness, you need to have plans on ground to provide financial assistance to the victims after they must have been rescued. We need to have plans on ground to create deterrent and that is the prosecution aspect of what we do. We have our trained lawyers who prosecute and we also have our in-house investigators. We work together with other law enforcement agents because we know the task is huge, human trafficking is huge, it happens in every community.
“NAPTIP operates from zonal offices, we have nine zonal offices altogether across the country. For instance, the Lagos zonal office covers Lagos, Oyo and Ogun States. Before now, it was all the states in the Western region but we realized for us to respond in a timely fashion, the current Director General, Dame Juile Okah Donli saw the need to expand and create Osun zonal command which was created about two years ago and one of the cases the first presenter mentioned was the case of Osun/ Lagos commands together with the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense worked together to see to it that the other victims and accomplices have been identified and investigation is ongoing.
“We thrive so much on partnership because we know there are other law enforcement agencies like the Police, the Civil Defense, the Nigerian Immigration Service even the Nigeria Customs Service, they have helped at different point in time to identify suspected cases of human trafficking because part of what we do is to train law enforcement agencies and other key stakeholders on how to identify cases of human trafficking or victims of human trafficking while on transit or while they are being engaged by their exploiters.
“Going further on our strategy, on public enlightenment, we believe it is going to create awareness, we engage different parts of the society, different stakeholders, we work with governments, the state actors and non-state actors. We work with faith based organizations, we visit places of worship on our own or when we are invited. We keep talking about the issues of human trafficking, first and foremost, how to identify human trafficking in disguise and how to also report such cases. And also, we know there are a lot of people who will have need for domestic servants, we also understand that our traditional fostering system has been abused. So, it is our duty to let people know that if you must engage domestic servants, you should treat the person humanely. The remuneration of this person must not go to a third party because that is where exploitation comes in and that is what we are fighting against.”
He continued, “We also talk about how to identify victims of human trafficking while they are on transit or in a work environment and we are always glad to share these information even at different fora. We go to schools, talk to potentials victims of human trafficking, because we have seen cases where undergraduates abandoned their education and off they go. Those that are fortunate, they come back alive to tell their stories. Migration as you are aware is your right, you can move at any time but what NAPTIP and other stakeholders in the migration field are saying is that if you must migrate, do it right. That is why we are talking about the issue of irregular migration and regular migration.
“Furthermore, we also engage in protection and assistance of victims of human trafficking. For a victim that is rescued or intercepted, it is our duty to counsel them on the ills of what they are about to go into and for those who have had experience already, their experiences are traumatic. It has so many consequences. We need to work on their psyche, we have our professional trained counselors, we have psycho-social service providers working with us. We also work with a whole lot of partners in the field.
“For us in Lagos, we have human trafficking taskforce where you have NGOs, Faith based organizations, law enforcement agencies, we also have development partners, we brainstorm on how to tackle the menace of human trafficking. It is a platform where you track cases. In Lagos state, this has really worked partnership. We have the state Child Protection Network, we also have the State Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force, the State Child Rights Implementation Committee, all of these bodies, we have our WhatsApp platforms where you can throw open any case you come across and the relevant authority takes it up from there. the issue of reporting to a particular agency and you feel the issue will not be handled properly will not be there because we have such partnership and such collaboration where you can throw it open and people will rally round to see that that needful is done.
“Like we always say, NAPTIP engage with a whole of government and a whole of the society, that was why we were glad that the Civil Defense was able to do what they did in Kwara State, then Diaspora Commission, they did what they were able to do with the resources available to them and they still made mention of the fact that the case will be handed over to NAPTIP and after that was done recently at the headquarters.”
Photo: DG NAPTIP, Mrs. Julie Okah-Donli.
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