The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) has asked Nigerians to be cautious of new tricks deployed by human traffickers on unsuspecting victims.
The agency, through its Director-General, Julie Okah-Donli, who appeared on Channels Television’s Hard Copy on Friday, said that the traffickers use religion and juicy job offers to lure people in rural areas.
“There is a very big problem, a new trend where religion has been brought into this, we have people who deceive young girls and boys that they want to send them for a pilgrimage to either Mecca or Jerusalem and when people hear this, they are excited.
“Then we have these travel agencies, who go into the rural areas again and bring these young girls and tell them that they are going to get jobs as housemaids in the holy land in Saudi Arabia, and they take them there and the rest is history; most of them are trafficked, we get distressed calls every day from girls being trafficked.”
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Okah-Donli also revealed that based on statistics released by foreign governments, the figures of human trafficking has reduced drastically.
“In Italy, the number of Nigerians going into Italy has dropped significantly, so we are told by the authorities. Likewise, Spain, France and so many other countries have dropped, and we believe that people are getting more aware.
“Back in the days, they (traffickers) had this oath-swearing ceremony before they shipped the children out of Nigeria. Now they have taken it out to the destination countries where the victims are stuck and cannot run away without a choice.
“You cannot sensitise the whole country at once because these criminals go into the rural communities where there is little or no access to the social media,” she added.