By Mustapha Sumaila
Abuja – The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) on Thursday expressed readiness to tackle the new dimension of human trafficking through massive awareness campaign in 2018.
Ms Julie Okah-Donli, the NAPTIP’s Director-General, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
Okah-Donli said though her agency had always sensitised Nigerians on dangers of human trafficking but this year’s awareness campaign would be aggressive to tackle the rising cases of trafficking in persons.
She said that awareness creation tops the NAPTIP’s 2018 strategies that would be used to stem the tide of the growing cases of human trafficking in the country.
“Awareness creation is our number one strategy because in the war against trafficking, creation of awareness takes 80 per cent.
“We have always sensitised people but we have to step up in our awareness campaign because of what we are witnessing now in terms of the large number of people involved in trafficking.
“A lot of people are so ignorant, so naive, they are not knowledgeable on the matter and our awareness will be targeting the youth, the parents and community leaders and it is now a total war against human trafficking which must be won,’’ she said.
According to her, the officials of NAPTIP will be all over the place in rural areas, schools, motor parks, markets and on the streets to educate Nigerians on the dangers of trafficking in persons.
She said that this is not the time the issue of trafficking should be left in the hands of the Federal Government along, state governments and organised private sectors must collaborate to win the war against human trafficking.
The director general said NAPTIP would take the sensitisation campaign to the grass roots and in nook and cranny of the country to prevent reoccurrence of what was experienced in Libya.
Okah-Donli, however, appealed to all security agencies in the country to work with her agency to reduce or eradicate the menace of human trafficking in the country.
“Our sisters agencies must work with us in a well coordinated manner to win this war against human trafficking because we cannot do it alone,’’ she said.