The Director General of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, Binta Bello on Thursday urged Principals of secondary schools in Ogun State to join forces with the agency in combating the challenge of human trafficking in the country.
Hajia Bello described human trafficking as the second highest organised transnational crime after drug trafficking and it is estimated globally to generate about $150bn annually.
She stated that Ogun State is one of the endemic states for this criminal act. Therefore the secondary school principals and administrators must take it as a priority to embrace the agency’s initiative deployed to tackle this menace.
The DG who was represented by the Director of Research and Programme Development, NAPTIP, Mr. Josiah Emerole made this call at a two-day training held in Abeokuta for selected 50 Principals of secondary schools who equally double as the Coordinators of Anti-Trafficking Vanguard Clubs in their respective schools.
The two-day training was organised in collaboration with the International Centre for Migration Policy Development.
She stated that the training was organised to deepen the understanding of the school principals about the issues around human trafficking so that everyone could get involved in tackling this organised crime.
Bello stated further that though some people may be downplaying human trafficking but it is a great evil that has led to the death of many young people and destroyed the lives of several others.
She said that “Human trafficking is a transnational organised crime, and all over the world it is counted next, second after drug trafficking and most of the people who fall victim are children, many children of school age.
“Some of these victims are in your schools, you may not know but after this training, you will be able to identify those victims in your schools and see how you can support them.
“What we are here to do is to tell you all that you need to know so that you will be able to coordinate these vanguards, you will be able to coordinate your teachers and people within your neighborhood to understand that trafficking is a crime, it is an evil that does no one any good.
“Ogun State is one of the endemic states as far as human trafficking is concerned. We have what we call internal trafficking and external trafficking. External is when people are trafficked outside the country but internal is when the trafficking is done from our villages to the city which is quite huge.
So, it is important that you listen and cooperate with us, there are many quarries in Ogun where many children are brought in to break stones, most of these children are trafficked. Trafficking is a crime that has an annual profit of that is not less than $150bn and some of these funds also belong to Nigerians.
“Our working with you will help us a lot to check human trafficking within our schools because what we are doing is to catch them young from school age so that they also have the knowledge and be able to know when the criminals are around them.”
Speaking at the training, the Project Manager, School Anti-Trafficking Education and Advocacy Project, International Centre for Migration Policy Development, Rhoda Dia-Johnson lamented that news headlines continued to be sad reminders of how school children fall victim to human trafficking.
Dia-Johnson stated that STEAP funded by the Kingdom of the Netherlands is to empower young school children to become informed, protected, and proactive citizens in combating human trafficking.
She disclosed that as “Principals and coordinators of anti-human trafficking in schools, you are not just educators, you are frontline defenders of children’s rights.
“You must be custodians of safe learning environments where signs of exploitation can be identified, where trust can be nurtured, and where children find the support they need to speak up.”
The Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology in the state, Prof Abayomi Arigbabu, declared that the ministry is in full support of aligning with global efforts to combat trafficking in persons.
Arigbabu, who was represented by the Director of Education Support Service, Akinola Okereafor, noted that the state has begun integrating Safe School Child Protection Policies and Psychosocial Support Frameworks into its education system.
He affirmed that school remains the first line of defence, adding that schools are not only centres of learning but incubators of values, identity, and resilience.
Arigbabu admonished the school administrators to often observe signs of abuse among other vulnerable behavioural changes that could indicate a child at risk.
