NAPTIP: Disregard Human Rights Watch Report on Trafficked Victims

Says report aimed at tarnishing Nigeria’s image

The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) has debunked allegations made against the agency and Nigeria by the Human Rights Watch in its 2019 report on human trafficking.

The rights body in a 90-page report released yesterday in Abuja, accused the anti-human trafficking agency of putting victims in detention camps, denying them necessary care and holding them in “slavery-like conditions inside Nigeria.’’

The body in the report titled “You Pray for Death: Trafficking of Women and Girls in Nigeria,’’ also accused the federal government of lack of clear cut policies and programmes that would improve conditions of trafficked victims.

But in a swift reaction, Director General of NAPTIP, Dame Julie Okah-Donli, who debunked the allegations yesterday, urged members of the public to disregard the report in its entirety for being false and aimed at tarnishing the image of NAPTIP and Nigeria.

“I will like to request the general public, the local and international media to disregard, discountenance this information as untrue, a pack of lies and an attempt to tarnish the image of NAPTIP and the Nigerian government for whatever ulterior motive the Human Rights Watch wants to achieve,” she said.

Okah-Donli, who told journalists that the report may not be unconnected with activities of enemies of the agency and traffickers, described the entire report as “a mere figment of the imagination of the writers”, adding that it fell below the standards in the operations of the agency’s shelters as well as the standards for its victims’ support and assistance.

The DG stressed that the agency observes all the world best practices in victims handling as enshrined by the Palermo Protocol, which includes that no victim shall be kept in a shelter against his or her will.

She added that activities in the shelters are further guided by the National Policy on Protection and Assistance to Trafficked Persons in Nigeria, a document that has also been adopted by ECOWAS in dealing with victims of human trafficking.

“The NAPTIP shelters are no doubt closed shelters where victims are given protections and assistance for a short while before moving them to open shelters so they can move about for their rehabilitation programmes which include going to school or learning a trade based on their preferences.