The Ogun State Government has pledged to strengthen partnerships and intensify efforts to combat human trafficking across the state.
State Commissioner for Education, Science, and Technology, Prof. Abayomi Arigbabu, gave the assurance on Thursday at a training session organized by the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) for student vanguards in Abeokuta.
Represented by the Director of Education Support Services, Mrs. Mary Akinola, Arigbabu said the state remains committed to working with all relevant stakeholders to end the scourge.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the training is funded by the Kingdom of the Netherlands and implemented by the International Centre for Migration Policy Development in collaboration with NAPTIP.
Arigbabu stressed that schools remained the first line of defence for students, serving as more than just centres of academic learning.
‘” The schools are incubators of values, Identities and resilience, so education managers, principals, teachers are first adults outside the home to observe signs of abuse, vulnerability or behavioral changes.” he said .
The Director of Research and Programme Development at the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), Mr Josiah Emerole, raised concern over the rising cases of human trafficking in Ogun.
Speaking with NAN on the sidelines of the training, Emerole said the state’s vulnerability to the crime was due to its multiple borders and their porosity.
He called for increased reporting of human trafficking cases to strengthen international collaboration in the fight against the menace.
Emerole explained that the aim of the training was to equip school leaders with adequate knowledge on human trafficking so they could effectively educate and sensitise their students.
He emphasised that Nigerian youths were invaluable and not for sale, adding that NAPTIP had successfully rescued over 25,000 young people from traffickers
” The victims have been sent back to schools or empowered with businesses.” he said
Mrs Rhoda Dig – Johnson , the Nigeria Project Manager for School Anti-Trafficking Education and Advocacy Project ( STEAP) said the project would pull all efforts to create conducive environment to prevent human trafficking.
