The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) has warned that human traffickers are increasingly posing as representatives of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to gain access to vulnerable communities and traffic children.
NAPTIP’s Head of Press and Public Relations, Vincent Adekoye, disclosed this on Tuesday in Abuja at a joint press briefing of security spokespersons, saying traffickers were targeting communities affected by insecurity, including farmer-herder conflicts, with fake educational and humanitarian programmes.
The warning comes as NAPTIP intensifies efforts to combat human trafficking, including the profiling of community-based, faith-based and other non-governmental organisations operating in vulnerable areas.
Adekoye said the agency had recovered 118 children allegedly trafficked from Nasarawa, Benue and three other North-Central states.
He said traffickers often approached distressed families with promises to return their children to school under bogus “back-to-school” initiatives, before taking the children away.
He cited the recent rescue of four children in Onitsha, Anambra State, allegedly trafficked from Kajuru, Kaduna State, in 2023, with some recovered from a high-rise building and another from a nurse at a Federal Medical Centre.
Adekoye urged CSO leaders to undertake an “in-house cleansing” of their organisations and called on Nigerians to be vigilant and report suspicious groups seeking to remove children from their families.
He also disclosed that traffickers were exploiting social media to lure young Nigerians abroad with fake lucrative job offers.
According to him, NAPTIP rescued 16 Nigerian men from Thailand in July after they were allegedly deceived with attractive employment opportunities, warning that the recruitment process was often made to appear legitimate through offers to arrange travel documents and transportation.
