Balogun Alabi
The Lagos Zonal Commander of National Agency of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), Mr. Joseph Famakin, has urged nongovernmental organizations (NGO) and members of the public to become public relations officers to NAPTIP and also to work in partnership, including information sharing.
The Lagos Zonal Commander said NAPTIP as an agency couldn’t work alone without the help of other organisations.
His words: “NAPTIP as an agency has come to realise that it cannot do all the work alone. We cannot be everywhere. The immigration, the police are there to assist us. We are partners; no one is superior or inferior to the other. Failure of partnership leads to failure of sharing information. In your environment, there are people living under exploitative condition. You see them every day. What have you done in sharing information? What are you doing to assist NAPTIP?”
Famakin also lamented and cited a case of human trafficking, whereby traffickers exploited young victims by taking them out of the country to indulge in prostitution.
He said: “Our children are suffering in the hands of exploiters. We have seen a case where a 14 year old girl was taken out of Nigeria. She was raped and deflowered, and was expected to pay 64,000 Euro, (N31 million) because she had to buy her freedom. Enough is enough! You may not believe this, but it is true. For the girl to get out of bondage, she needed to serve her exploiter for the period of not less than four years. Within those four years, she needed to sleep with about 10 to 15 men daily in protected and unprotected sex. It is an act of inhumanity. My heart bleeds each time I go to our shelter.”
Famakin also urged members of the public to share information concerning human trafficking when necessary.
He stressed: “I urge you to become a public relations officer to NAPTIP, by telling people that child their houses, where babies are looking after babies, is not proper. As I speak to you now, Nigerians are being trafficked through legal and illegal points like through the desert and Mediterranean Sea, notwithstanding that they see pictures of people dying through these routes. Those people that have gone, how do we bring them back as an organisation? Because of partnership, we are able to rescue many from Libya and America.
“Immediately they are rescued, embassies or International Organization for Migration (IOM) are informed and they in turn will inform NAPTIP. Our Lagos shelter has 60 bed spaces. Immediately victims are received at the airport, we take them to the shelter. At the shelter, we have caregivers, counselors, matrons, and nurses. In the shelter, victims are counseled through the traumatic experience they passed through during the exploitation. Once they are emotionally stable, there is the need for them to go through vocational training, formal and informal education. Some of the victims will say they want to learn different kinds of vocational training. NGO’s then assist us in the training of the victims. If the victims are trained, they are empowered.”
Famakin revealed that NAPTIP’s law was now stronger than it was before. He said: “A husband and wife were sentenced to seven years in jail with no option of fine.”
He revealed that organ harvesting was the new trend in human trafficking. “The new trend in human trafficking now is organ harvesting. Eggs and kidneys are been harvested. Victims are deceived to become donors,” he said.
First Published 2018
