Men Too Are Target Of Human Traffickers – NAPTIP

By Ayodele Oni

The News  has always been filled with reports of Human Traffickers exporting girls into foreign land for prostitution.

Some of the victims are usually attracted with a promise of getting well paid jobs abroad but end up becoming sex slaves.

The National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffcking in Persons, (NAPTIP) has just  revealed  that not only girls are victims as boys are now targets of these human traffickers.

The agency has, therefore, alerted Nigerians especially men and boys to be wary of those that cajole them with sweet job and education offers to take them abroad as some of them end up becoming sexual tools.

Commander of the Agency in Anambra state, Mrs Ibadin Judith-Chukwu, during an interraction  with newsmen  on this year’s World Day Against Human Trafficking, said human traffickers are now trafficking male victims to asian countries for sexual exploitation.

World Day Against Human Trafficking is a global commemoration marked on July 30th every year, to spotlight the destructive effects of trafficking in persons in the society, appreciate efforts of various government to stamp out the crime and highlight the plights of the victims, who are the sufferers of the crime.

The NAPTIP Commander noted that the crime is getting sophisticated with technological advancement.

“Men and boys from Anambra here are being trafficked to the Asian countries. They are kept in brothels and older women will come and take them home to satisfy their sexual desire after which they return them to the brothels. Unfortunately, the proceeds go to whoever runs the brothels.

“Remember, before they left Nigeria, they were promised jobs through travel agents. But when they get there, their passports would be seized and they become vulnerable.

“They drug their food and water so that they will be able to service as many women as possible. From information we’ve received, a lot of them died in the process.”

Commenting on this year’s theme – “use and abuse of technology”,

the NAPTIP Commander mentioned various ways human traffickers leverage on technology to advance their illicit businesses.

“They use technology to offer fake online jobs, profile the victims and advertise sex websites. They cajole girls into posting their pictures with which they are displayed as commodities for men to make choices.

“They use it to control and monitor their movement through GPS. They can also use technology to blackmail the victims too. They say, if you want to expose us, we expose your nude pictures or videos.”

Mrs Judith-Chukwu stressed the need for those campaigning against human trafficking to maximize the positive sides of technology, especially the social media, to undermine the operations and activities of the criminals.

“When you are investigating cases of human trafficking, you can use technology to track the locations of the suspects and victims.

“We can also extract open financial investigation through the accounts of the suspects making them to forfeit proceeds of the crime. We can use it to access their bank account details with all legal backing to ascertain financial flows and what they are meant for.

“We use various social media accounts such as whatsapp, facebooks, twitter and others. You can report cases of human trafficking via emails to us.”

She appealed to residents of Anambra and other Nigerians to be more careful as traffickers now employ new techniques enabled technology to trap unsuspecting persons.