By Kingsley Omonobi
The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, NAPTIP, has called for an investigation into some civil society organisations, CSOs, allegedly being used as fronts by human traffickers to gain access to vulnerable communities and traffic children.
The agency also disclosed that it had recovered 118 children allegedly trafficked from Nasarawa, Benue and three other states in the North-Central region.
NAPTIP’s Head of Press and Public Relations, Vincent Adekoye, disclosed this on Tuesday in Abuja at a joint briefing by security agencies’ spokespersons.
Adekoye said traffickers were increasingly exploiting communities affected by insecurity, including farmer-herder conflicts, by posing as representatives of non-governmental organisations and offering assistance to vulnerable families.
He said some traffickers approached distressed communities under the guise of providing educational and humanitarian support before taking children away.
“Traffickers also now masquerade under the umbrella of Civil Society Organizations and move to communities that are already distressed; moving to communities where you have farmer-herder crises, and promising parents that, ‘we will take your children back to school,’ under a fake back-to-school project. And from there, they harvest children, move them,” he said.
Adekoye disclosed that NAPTIP recently rescued four children in Onitsha, Anambra State, who were allegedly trafficked from Kajuru in Kaduna State in 2023.
He said some of the children were recovered from a high-rise building, while another was found in the custody of a nurse at a Federal Medical Centre in Onitsha.
According to him, the agency is planning to profile CSOs, particularly community-based and faith-based organisations operating in vulnerable areas, to prevent criminal elements from exploiting their credibility.
“We have continued to ensure that we want to profile the Civil Society Organizations in Nigeria. My DG has asked me to convey to them, the leadership of the CSOs in Nigeria, to do an in-house cleansing,” Adekoye said.
He explained that community-based, faith-based and non-governmental organisations were often familiar to residents and could therefore be exploited by traffickers seeking to gain the trust of vulnerable families.
The NAPTIP spokesman said the agency had so far recovered 118 children allegedly trafficked from Nasarawa, Benue and three other North-Central states.
He urged Nigerians to remain vigilant and report suspicious activities involving organisations seeking to take children away from their families.
“As at last count, we have recovered 118 of such children from those that were trafficked from Nasarawa and from Benue, and three other states within the North Central. So, we are appealing to Nigerians to be watchful. When you see them, please contact NAPTIP,” he said.
Adekoye recalled that NAPTIP had earlier disclosed the rescue of more than 180 children from trafficking networks allegedly operating under the guise of civil society organisations offering educational support to vulnerable families.
Traffickers exploit social media
The agency also warned of an increasing technology-driven dimension to human trafficking, saying traffickers were using social media platforms to recruit young Nigerians with promises of lucrative jobs and better living conditions abroad.
Adekoye said NAPTIP recently rescued 16 young Nigerian men from Thailand after they were allegedly lured with attractive employment offers.
He explained that the recruitment process was often designed to appear legitimate, with traffickers offering to arrange travel documents, transportation and other logistics for prospective victims.
“From beginning, it looks so real to them that they have no reason at all to doubt. So, the agency has been inundated in recent times with calls from some of them who are stranded.
“Just in July, we rescued about 16 of them from Thailand. When you hear their story, your emotion will corrupt you of what they pass through. Some of them couldn’t survive. Those who survived have a narrow escape from death,” he said.
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