The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) in collaboration with the Network against Trafficking, Abuse and Child Labor (NACTAL) have secured the release of 15 Nigerian girls trafficked to Mali.
The girls, one of whom has a three-year-old child and two who are pregnant, were released with the support of Action Against Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling in Nigeria (A-TIPSOM).
A-TIPSOM is a project being implemented in Nigeria for Administration and Public Policy (FIIAP) and is being sponsored by the European Union (EU).
Speaking during the girls’ arrival at Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja on Sunday, NAPTIP Director General Dr. Fatima Waziri-Azi said the girls’ return was achieved through a collaborative effort.
Representing Agbayekhai, head of NAPTIP’s Smart and International Corporations Unit, the director general said the process began through information the agency obtained from NACTAL, an NGO working in partnership.
“You will agree with me that these children of ours have not been only in Mali, but today we are happy to have been able to bring back this number of girls.
“We are hoping and planning to bring more of these children back, because we still have many of them in Mali.
“Today we have 15 of them with a three-year-old boy, a boy. A research team that went to Mali in 2017 estimated that there are still some 20,000 Nigerians trafficked there.
“These brought back today are a drop in the bucket of the number of these Nigerians. This is a good start, NAPTIP DG will work with the ministers concerned to bring as many back as possible.
“Bringing them back was not difficult, we had an NGO that we worked with in Mali, we collected information, we shared intelligence and it was easy to bring them together,” said Waziri-Azi.
The 15 Nigerian girls rescued by NAPTIP, NACTAL and FIIAPP, after being trafficked to Mali. Mr. Abdulganiyu Abubakar, President of NACTAL, stated that the entire process was made possible by the partnership they have with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in the 16 West African countries.
He said that NACTAL has implemented different mechanisms in the 16 ECOWAS countries for the protection of children.
Abubakar said that there is no country in the region that has a formidable platform in terms of child protection mechanism like Nigeria.
He said that the partnership with ECOWAS countries on the child protection mechanism led to the formation of the West African Coalition Against Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants (WACTISOM).
“It is this WACTISOM initiative that led to the identification of these young Nigerian girls; our partners in Mali have written to us about these 15 girls in their custody who are victims of trafficking.
“They all escaped their traffickers and want to go home and we immediately contacted NAPTIP and A-TIPSOM. Mali is a major transit country for human trafficking,” he said.
Ms. Ugoh Ogbunde, Technical Advisor on Partnerships for A-TIPSOM, said that all her organization has done is to provide support for the girls’ return.
