Roland Ogbonnaya
5 July 2009
Lagos — The National Agency for Prohibition of Traffic in Persons and other Related Matters {NAPTIP}, recently convicted three human traffickers. The traffickers, which include Jonah Osaarimwan, 25, Patience Aisomwan, 30, and Helen Aisomwan were sentenced to two years imprisonment without an option of fine.
While Patience and Helen Aisomwan were sentenced to one-year imprisonment each for their role in the procurement of 17 young girls to a human trafficker, Gladys Joy Okonta, 30, for trafficking abroad. Both sentences are without an option of fine.
In the case of Okonta who is standing trial on charges of procurement and organising foreign travels for 17 young girls, which promotes exploitative sex trade, Justice Okeke reserved judgment for July 28 2009. Delivering the judgment, Justice Okeke reiterated the stand of the court as the last hope for justice for victims of human trafficking, as she insisted that the accused person's plea of guilt does not mitigate the offence as preferred against them.
The Executive Secretary of NAPTIP, Simon Chuzi Egede, a lawyer, said the judgment is a strong statement in the condemnation of the crime of trafficking and a complete support of the judiciary arm to finally rid the nation of the crime. He said human trafficking is a sad commentary due to collapse of family values as it has become a family business, judging that the two female traffickers were from the same family who showed lack of respect for their own family as well as to life of the young and vulnerable ones.
Egede told THISDAY in Abuja recently that NAPTIP has been and will always be a trafficker's worst nightmare. He stated that the rate at which the courts are prosecuting these cases and securing convictions clearly shows a strong level of collaboration among "our partners and stakeholders. This conviction brings to 14 of the number of convictions secured by Sokoto Zonal Office of NAPTIP and 57 of the number of traffickers brought to justice by the agency since inception."
The Executive Secretary said the human traffickers who think that with the change in the leadership of the organisation would slow the campaign against the illicit business should better have a rethink because he has resolved to haunt them wherever they are. Egede who assumed duty as the boss of the organisation few months ago, while basking in the latest conviction by the courts however explained some of the challenge in the campaign against human trafficking.
"As you are very much aware, NAPTIP is a law enforcement agency and as with other law enforcement agencies, we deal with the crime of trafficking in persons and the major challenge that one would allude to would be the nature of the crime. The traffickers themselves are very much organised. They go into the villages and every nook and cranny of the country and lure the vulnerable children and women with false messages, coercion and all sorts of false presentations.
"The victims themselves do not know what they are getting into. Most times, they buy what these people feed them with and then begin to dream of the financial wealth that would come out of these foreign trips. So the major challenge is even when they are apprehended, the victims are not ready to tell us all about the perpetrators of these evil trips. The more dangerous aspect of it is the fact that many of them are taken to the shrines and other institutions where oath of secrecy is administered on them," he said. On the other hand, he said some of the victims are threatened with death if they should reveal the identity of the traffickers. So it becomes very difficult for them to tell the story that would enable the agency apprehend a full time trafficker. Again the Act, like all other laws is a public document which people are aware of, but there is the challenge where people are not able to accept or reconcile themselves with the provision of the Act vis-à-vis the cultural belief of the people.
For instance, Egede noted that the area of internal trafficking- the syndrome of housewife and house girl, culturally is part of the society where a boy serves a master or a man brings his uncle's or aunt's daughter to take care of his children. Also, a businessman brings a young girl or boy to be an apprentice and all that. These, he said, are the areas the agency wants to reconcile between cultural practices and the law, because it is realised that children and their parents were actually being exploited.
He said, "You bring somebody from the village and he/she lives with you, does not earn any money or go to school as he or she should while your own children are going to school. The people in the village believe that the children are living better lives over there in the city but the world knew and we have all come to agree that this is exploitation and child labour which must not continue. Some times, we have inadequate financial cooperation in the area of investigation and deportation of traffickers in destination countries."
According to investigation, a lot of Nigerians are trafficked into some North African countries where they are promised a passage to Europe as most of the trafficking is perpetrated across the land boarders in the Northern part of the country. Despite the efforts of the men and officers of the Nigerian Immigration and Police, because of the massive land boarder of the country, it is not possible to mount check points on every major road, so traffickers still find other illegal routes out of the country. Having succeeded in leaving the country, they go through other hideouts and camp in Niger, Libya and Morocco, en-route to Europe, hence the concentration of many Nigerian victims in those countries.
Efforts have been made in the past; including NAPTIP officials in collaboration with other agencies in the country to have these stranded illegal immigrants deported. "Indeed, I would want to say that these countries take the menace very seriously. In Libya for instance, where official information is received, it is treated very promptly and these illegal immigrants are handed over to the police and are deported immediately. But as with other trans-national criminal organisations, traffickers have huge financial outlay at their disposal to influence concerned authorities in these countries and do all that it takes to avoid being caught up by the law," Egede said.
The NAPTIP boss further told THISDAY that he is aware of the sophistication the traffickers are devising to carry out their illegal businesses. He however said that his agency is always ready to combat such acts. "It is true that their antics are becoming more and more sophisticated. But we have also been able to collaborate with several international organisations as well as adopt a national plan of action, which has been approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) and adopted by ECOWAS Council of Ministers.
"This kind of action is a comprehensive document which encompasses all strategies to deal with these problems. We have opened a new office in Maiduguri, which makes it three within the northern part of the country. The essence is to have operatives in those zonal offices that can easily be mobilised to the boarders to check trafficking and to apprehend traffickers. Again with the support of some European countries, we have developed several software and material. We have some materials that when traffickers are arrested and apprehended, their handset can be taken to our computer and all calls and messages within a period of time can be monitored and accessed.
"This is a very good technical assistant that we have received and only last month, the Italian government also donated another modern equipment (software) where we can also intercept some of these people within a particular area and our investigators would be able to follow the trend in trafficking and communication and other gathering of information would become easier and effective. So we thank the governments of those countries and our sponsors for being able to equip us in the most modern technology in this fight and I dare say we are one of the first that is being equipped with these technologies. We are very well equipped and focused on the fight and I believe our officers are equal to the task too," the NAPTIP boss said.
He said the fight is in two forms: internally and within the boarders. The internal trafficking, he pointed out, gives a bit of headache because it has been very much entrenched in the cultural values. For instance, Egede mentioned the case of child begging in some parts of the country. Another difficult area is where 'madams' who run restaurants and beer palours recruit these young hands to help out in the running of such place, but unfortunately, many of them eventually turns out to become prostitutes under the supervision of their 'madam.'
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