NAPTIP rescues victim of forced labour in Egypt
The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), said it has rescued a victim of forced labour in Egypt.
The latest development follows the call by the Director General of NAPTIP, Dame Julie Okah-Donli, on leadership of the various regulatory bodies in the country to warn their members against aiding the trafficking of Nigerians for illicit purposes.
Recall that the Agency, had a few weeks ago, in partnership with the Nigerian Embassy in Beirut, rescued two Nigerians of Kwara State origin, who were victims of human trafficking from Lebanon.
The lady (names withheld), was received by Officers of NAPTIP on January 30th, at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, at about 14:28hrs local time.
Okah-Donli was in Cairo with the Director Research and Programme Development, Godwin Morka, for the Regional conference on Irregular Migration from the Sahel region through the Central Mediterranean, when her attention was called to a victim of trafficking, who had fled from her captives and needed help.
The Director General, with the support of the Nigerian Ambassador to Egypt, Professor Dandatti Abdulkadir, rescued the girl, and she had been in the Nigerian Embassy in Cairo until her return.
According to NAPTIP, preliminary intelligence gathering revealed that the victim, a Nigerian female, from Edo State, was trafficked to Cairo, in May 2019, by a Nigerian syndicate who are in the business of moving Nigerians to the Middle East for labour exploitation, but she was told that she would be employed to teach English.
She allegedly travelled via the Murtala Mohammed International Airport on May 27, 2019, transiting Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), and Khartoum (Sudan), aboard Ethiopian Airlines before travelling for three days by road from Sudan to Egypt.
She was was said to have engaged in domestic servitude in Cairo, with conditions different from her earlier agreement with the agents. She was made to work long hours, lived in deplorable conditions, physically abused and sexually molested by members of the trafficking syndicate and her employers.
The Agency said it engaged the victim, the Nigerian Embassy in Egypt and other stakeholders, which led to her successful rescue on November 27th, and eventual repatriation on January 30th.
Her return was supported by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), under the IOM voluntary repatriation assistance programme.
NAPTIP stated that intelligence gathering is still ongoing to uncover the true identities and current whereabouts of members of the syndicate based in Egypt and Nigeria. The Agency is currently liaising with the relevant law enforcement organisations in Nigeria for the arrest of some of the identified suspects.
Okah-Donli while expressing her appreciation to the Ambassador and officials of the Nigerian Embassy in Cairo, re-emphasized her warnings to travel agents, labour recruiters and other nationals, who are now involved in the new wave of human trafficking especially to the Middle East to desist from such unlawful acts.
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