By Aliyu DANLADI
The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) say the legalisation of prostitution in some countries of the world has hampered the fight against human trafficking in Nigeria.
The Director-General of NAPTIP, Dr Julie Okah-Donli, stated this in Abuja at a news conference to mark the 2018 World Day against Human Trafficking on Monday.
The United Nations in 2013 adopted a resolution that every July 30, should be marked as the World Day against Human Trafficking to raise awareness on the situation of victims and for the promotion and protection of their rights.
Okah-Donli explained that legalising prostitution in some countries of the world had posed a big problem in winning the war against human trafficking.
She said that if trafficked persons were not used the way they were being used in some countries, the cases of human trafficking would have been reduced.
“If you have a product and there are no buyers, the sellers will not sell them and it is vice versa,” she said.
The NAPTIP boss said her agency had focused on arresting and prosecuting those recruiting under-aged children as house helps across the country.
She said the agency would no longer tolerate a situation where children were used as slaves in the name of house help.
“A lot of people who engage these children pay salaries to the agents who brought them, not the children working for them, that is human trafficking.
“Children below the age of 12 are considered under-aged but we are trying to review the law to age 18,” she said.
Okah-Donli disclosed that in the last 15 years, NAPTIP had rehabilitated 13,000 victims of human trafficking and provided them with skills, education, medical supports as well as empowerment before reintegrating them into the society.
