By Jessica Tamaradonye/Asaba

The penchant by many Nigerians to seek foreign scholarships has become a new goldmine for human traffickers, it has been revealed.

The Nigerian National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons and Other Related Matters, NAPTIP, which made the revelation, said that human traffickers now get victims in the name of procuring scholarships for them in foreign countries.

The agency made this know Tuesday through its Benin Zonal coordinator, Cordelia Ebinringa at a capacity building workshop for law enforcement agencies on modern trend and new methods of human trafficking and child labour.

Ebinringa observed that traffickers were exploiting the gullibility and ignorance of Nigerians on global trends in human trafficking, adding that there was a need for cooperation between NAPTIP and security agencies and other stakeholders in the country.

Represented by Nduka Nwawene, the NAPTIP zonal coordinator lamented that the collaboration between the agency and security agencies which yielded results in the past had dwindled.

Explaining the reason behind orgainsing the workshop she said: “The purpose of this workshop is principally to bridge this knowledge mainly in the area of intelligence gathering as well as avail us the knowledge of new techniques employed by human traffickers in perpetrating the crime of human trafficking.”

She stated that all stakeholders in the fight against human trafficking had to be abreast of information and trends in the global was against human and child trafficking in order to achieve desired results.