16 August 2007
Lagos — HEAD of National Agency for the Prohibition and Trafficking in Persons and other Related Matters (NAPTIP), Kano State zone, Ahmed M. Bello has disclosed that over 60 per cent of victims of trafficking repatriated to the country tested HIV positive.
The victims who are mainly teenagers, he added, engaged in prostitution overseas.
He disclosed this yesterday at a workshop for law enforcement officers on prevention and handling of survivors of trafficking and child labour in Kano, said human trafficking is increasing at an alarming rate nationwide.
Alhaji Bello who said the incidence of human trafficking has increased in the country, noted that a disturbing dimension, is being added to it
Traffickers he said, now engage in organ trafficking forcefully taking their victims organ like kidney.
"We feel law enforcement agencies must know about this horrifying practice, this clandestine phenomenon where a victim's kidney is transplanted to another person without the consent of the person. Though it is nearly impossible to monitor or detect, you should know it exist," he said.
The NAPTIP boss noted that the workshop is targeted, at improving partnership with the agency, equipping them with skills and methods of identifying and supporting victims as well as rehabilitating them.
Alhaji Bello expressed optimism that the training would enable the participants to fully comprehend the activities of the agency.
Presenting a paper "child labour as a social problem in Nigerians" on the occasion, Dr. Folashade B Okeshola of Sociology Department, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, observed that despite the right of the child convention, child abuse remains a serious social problem in the country.
"We are aware that Nigeria is behind in executing what has been entrenched in the United Nations convention on the right of the child, to whom she is one of the signatories as a memberstate," she said.
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