NAPTIP promises to step up fight against human trafficking

The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) on Friday said it would step up the fight against human trafficking in the country.

The Director-General of the agency, Dr Fatima Waziri-Azi, disclosed this to newsmen in Keffi at the closing session of a three-day training organised for journalists.

Waziri-Azi said that the agency would also intensify the fight against Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) across the country.

The three-day training was tagged: “Capacity Development Orientation, Development of Standard Reporting Template for Members of the Trafficking in Persons Media Core and Officers of Press and Public Relations Unit.”

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the training was jointly organised by NAPTIP and Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policy (FIIAPP).

FIIAPP is a Spanish public foundation working on a project in Nigeria tagged: “Action against Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants (A-TIPSOM)”, a project sponsored by the European Union (EU).

Waziri-Azi said that the agency would not relent on its oars in going after human trafficking syndicates wherever they are hiding to rid the country of the menace.

According to her, part of the plan to step up the game against trafficking is the planned inauguration of anti-human trafficking vanguard clubs in all unity schools in the country.

“We won’t relent as an agency just as the traffickers are not planning to relent; our goal is to inaugurate vanguard clubs against human trafficking in all the unity schools in Nigeria.

“We rely on the media team to be the voice for the agency, we must up our game as an agency, and as a journalist, you must work to our place,” she stressed.

The director-general disclosed that NAPTIP had sponsored 13 human trafficking survivors to university level, and that three of them were already working in the agency.

She said that the agency had been able to train and rehabilitate some of the victims and called on the media to support the agency in order to operate optimally.

Mr Josiah Emerole, NAPTIP Director of Public Enlightenment, stressed the need to implore investigative reporting on Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants (TIP/SOM) cases.

He urged journalists to work towards the direction of investigative journalism to enable the country win the war against trafficking.

He called on the media to also spread its tentacles on TIP/SOM coverage to the court, by focusing on the law, the gaps, its enforcement, delays and all that is necessary.

“Choose your words carefully, tell the truth of the story but not to the detriment of the victim’s, focus more on the perpetrators,” Emerole said.