NAPTIP holds awareness walk send strong signals agsinst human traffickers.

The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) held an awareness walk in Abuja to educate Nigerians about the antics of human traffickers and sends strong signal against the act of Trafficking.

Director-General of NAPTIP Hajia Binta Adamu-Bello, at the awareness walk emphasised that the rally was geared towards sensitising Nigerians on the antics and routes of human trafficking as the agencybdisclised that it wont be busniess as usual.

Speaking further Hajia Adamu Bello by distributing a symbolic “Red Card” among other leaflets, the agency has issued notices to the organised trafficking syndicates in Nigeria and within the African corridor that their time is up.

While decrying the continuous deceit, recruitment, trafficking, and exploitation of Nigerian target population by these traffickers, she added that the walk was an affront to collective result that trafficking must stop in Nigeria.

She stated that within the 774 local governments in the vountry, NAPTIP has has expanded its stakeholders, network to include major actors at the grassroots level which she pointed out that it was a deliberate and strategic preventive mechanism to create the desired awareness in the rural communities .

She pointed out that the Agency have collaborated with major service providers in the country such as National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO), organised professional and community based women’s groups, religious and traditional rulers, state government across Nigeria and other critical partners.

She appreciated the sustained support, partnership, and collaboration gotten fromn numerous partners, such as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC), International Organisation for Migration, International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), the International and Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policies (FIAPP), Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and many others

Mrs Aishat Braiman, Project Coordinator, TIP/SOM, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC), stated that prevention is a key tool to eradicate the menace of human trafficking.

“As a stakeholder within the migration governance space,events like this can never be overemphasised.For us at UNODC, we prioritise emphasis at the state level,working in the state level to ensure that we adequately sensitisethe grassroots level.

In her words , Mrs Isabelle Wolfsgruber, Head of Office at the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), appealed to the media to help champion the campaign against human trafficking at the community level, even at the schools.

She said that ICMPD would continue to do its part to help carry on the awareness at the grassroot level.

Mr Javier Leon, the team lead for FIAPP, who was represented by Mr Bello Omotosho, an officer in the organisation pledged FIAPP continuous support to all activities of NAPTIP in the area of combating human trafficking