THE Director-General of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) Basheer Garba Muhammed has said that many Nigerians are trapped in sexual and labour exploitation in various African and European countries.
In the last 14 days, the agency said it successfully rescued 104 victims.
During a meeting with the Governor of Kano State Abdulahi Umar Ganduje to discuss strategies to curb human trafficking, Muhammed disclosed that a ‘farm’ had been identified in Libya where Black African migrants were allegedly kept in cages like animals.
The NAPTIP boss revealed that their vital organs such as eyes, kidneys and lungs would thereafter be harvested and sold in the black market to service the medical needs of Europe.
“NAPTIP is worried over this ugly trend of the trafficking of young Nigerian women to the Middle East, who are mostly from Kano and neighbouring states.
“The problem of human trafficking and irregular migration has become national and international concerns,” he said.
Hundreds of African migrants in search of greener pastures continue to die in transit along the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea. Muhammed noted that Kano State was highly endemic in the statistics of rescue of victims of human trafficking as well as arrest and prosecution of proven offenders.
According to him, out of a total of 14,474 Nigerian victims of human trafficking rescued by the agency since inception, 1,287 had come from Kano State, which also accounted for 110 out of 482 convicted persons by NAPTIP.
He said human trafficking was a deadly crime capable of truncating the future of any nation due to its spiral effects on not only the victims but the entire family, adding that that the agency had redoubled its efforts and reloaded strategies to stamp out human traffickers from all parts of Nigeria.
He disclosed that the agency had commenced acquisition of modern equipment and upgrading of the existing operational strategies, coupled with enhancing capacity-building for its operatives, for the purpose of fishing out trafficking barons and their accomplices no matter their hideouts within and outside the country.
The agency has also remodeled its communication platforms, which include an ultra-modern call centre and introduced a 627 shortcode that will enhance the prompt reportage of cases of human trafficking anywhere across the World.