Edo Tops List of Human Trafficking Convicts – NAPTIP Commander

The Benin Zonal Commander of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Persons (NAPTIP), Nduka Nwanwenne, has disclosed that since 2004, the Agency had arrested, prosecuted and convicted over 500 human traffickers in Edo State, while the number at the national level was over 800.
Nduka, who made the disclosure at a stakeholders’ interactive forum to commemorate 2022 World Day Against Human Trafficking, with the theme: “Use and Abuse of Technology,” in Benin City, the Edo State capital, said the use of technology had helped in investigating, profiling, gathering data, tracking, monitoring and prosecution human traffickers.
He stated that in order to reduce human trafficking in Nigeria, it was vital for all stakeholders to join to fight the plight before it sinks the country. He said the use of technology can also help in creating awareness about the hazards of human trafficking.
The NAPTIP Benin Zonal Commander lamented that uncountable Nigerian boys and girls taken away in the human trafficking trade are stranded in Mali, Libya and other Africa countries.
Lamenting how traffickers also use technology to track their victims, Commander Nwanwenne said trafficking humans is still going on everyday and called on all stakeholders to join hands with government to end the menace .
“Human traffickers use technology to recruit, profile, track and connect to their clients and victims, and added that, those human traffickers make huge amounts of money that has made it very difficult to send them to prison.”
In her presentation, former Attorney General of Edo State and Commissioner for Justice, Prof. Yinka Omorogbe, said the use of technology had helped a lot to curb human trafficking in Edo State.
Prof. Omorogbe who is presently Chairman, Edo State Taskforce on a Human Trafficking, posited that the use of technology is not just for data gathering alone, but also for counseling, recording and tracking human traffickers.
She lamented that human traffickers transport their victims to various locations everyday and called for constant awareness against the problem in our society.
Prof Omorogbe said that to reduce the menace, technology has to be used in the social media in a way that it would discourage youths not to travel abroad.
The representative of Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Edo State Command, CIS Rabiu Garaba, who represented by Doris Anuh, said five percent of the victims of migrants have their victims outside the country.
Anuh stressed that their role is to monitor activities of hotels and brothels to see how smugglers take their victims abroad.
She added that NIS also checks if smugglers smuggle minors to foreign countries for sexual exploitation.
In the opening remarks, the Program Manager, Anti-Human Trafficking and Migration, Oriakhi Onomen Priscilla, said every country in the world is affected by human trafficking, whether as a country of origin, transit, or destination. She said, “Today, as stakeholders and partners in the campaign against all forms of human trafficking, we have another opportunity to explore the issues, around human trafficking in their different contexts and how technology has aided or impeded the fight against human trafficking.
“This interactive forum will certainly be packed with rich narratives of how far we have been able to make use of technological advancement so and what has worked for us.
“Central in all these are the victims whose dignity as humans are ripped off. Traffickers all over the world continue to target men, women, and children. The vast majority of detected victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation are females and about 35 per cent of those trafficked for forced labour are males.
“War further worsens vulnerabilities with armed groups exploiting civilians and traffickers targeting forcibly displaced people in refugee camps and settlements. Consequences, poverty persists and inequalities are growing, which makes potentials victims more susceptible to traffickers,” she added.