Mrs Beatrice Jeddy-Agba is the executive secretary, National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons (NAPTIP). In this interview with CHUKS OHUEGBE, she speaks on the milestones recorded by NAPTIP and plans to rejig the Act establishing the agency with a view to tightening the noose around human traffickers in the country. Excerpts:
The agency will be 10 years next year, what has it been like?
It has been a lot of work in terms of cultural re-orientation, counseling, law enforcement, rehabilitation, empowerment of victims of trafficking. I would say that a lot has been achieved. Nigeria is one of the few countries that has a dedicated anti-trafficking agency, and that we were more effectively able to ensure that all that needs to be done to check trafficking is done more effectively to appreciate protection of? victims of trafficking, prosecution, as well as prevention.
NATIP has done a lot in terms of public enlightenment and prosecution. We have prosecuted so many Nigerians. Enlightenment is high, though I am sure in this particular regard we could do more.
Would you say that the agency has justified its existence?
Yes it has. If you imagine the number of victims the agency has rescued in the past nine years, for over five thousand; If you think about the number of victims the agency has economically empowered; if you think about the number of people who are enlightened about the scourge of trafficking today;if you think of the young Nigerians that otherwise would have been trafficked without our enlightenment; and also if you think about the awareness of opinion makers and people who are in government about their own responsibilities to ensure that they push against trafficking, then you will agree that certainly, the agency has achieved? a lot and justified its existence.
There appears to be a disconnect between the federal government and the state governments in tackling this menace. What level of assistance do you get from state governments?
So many state governments have been helpful. A lot many more may not really be aware of what is going on, but going forward we intend to improve on that. A few weeks ago, I was given the privilege, I to speak with the National Economic Council (NEC), where I had the chance to speak with the state governors about trafficking, its effects, the trend, the pattern, the damage it is doing to the image of the country and to the future of our youths.
A lot of them were quite alarmed about what was going on. Quite a number of them understood the need to collaborate with NAPTIP and the vice president has thankfully agreed that going forward, the states should do more to work with NAPTIP to tackle the issue of trafficking and child protection within their jurisdiction.
So with that work in progress now, hopefully within the next one year or so, we will begin to see state governments doing a lot more than they are presently doing to assist NAPTIP.
You must have noticed some shortcomings in the Act that established NAPTIP, especially concerning the rights of the child. Are there plans for a review?
Certainly yes. Presently the NAPTIP Act is undergoing a review. It has reached a very advanced stage and its presently before the attorney-general and minister of justice of the federation. Hopefully, within the next few weeks we will be able to send a memo to the National Executive Council (NEC).? We have noted quite a number of inadequacies in our legislation which need to be addressed. We are actually re-enacting the entire Trafficking in Persons’ Act.
Would you throw more light on these areas?
For instance, apart from a lot of inelegance in the drafting of the initial bill, we find that judges have been giving options of fines to convicted traffickers under the current Act.This has been a source of major concern to NAPTIP and our partners; and because of the devastating nature of the offences of trafficking, we want to tighten up this loose end by amending the Act.
You must not forget that like every other crime, trafficking is an offence against human person. It violates all known laws, principle of equity, fairness, natural justice and particularly, Chapter 4 of the 1999 Constitution.
You find also that people benefit from the exploitation of victims of trafficking, and when you ask them to pay an option of fine in lieu of imprisonment, don’t forget that they are going to use the money they realised from the exploitation of victims to pay this same fines. So it does not serve as a deterrent to those who would? otherwise have been involved in trafficking.
So we say ‘no’? it is not enough for them to pay fine. They must actually be deprived of their liberty; they must be made to understand what they are putting the victims through. We think that is a major aspect NATIP is looking at.
There are other issues, such as strengthening the mechanism for protection of children. For instance, as it presently stands, trafficking exploitation within a family environment is not within the competence of NAPTIP. The law at present says if you are arrested for trafficking and the person is working within a home or family environment, it is an exception.And so most of the cases of abused house girls that we find, who are not given the benefit of education, actually happened within their family environment.
So NAPTIP is unable to do anything about it, and of course, this to a large extent hampers our capacity to prosecute. What we are doing now is to link the NAPTIP Act with the Child Rights Act, which says a child up to a certain age must be in school.
So, whether that person is your child, or your sister’s child, a child of your brother, if you want to take the child to help you with housework, the child must be in school and is entitled to rest and leisure. The child is entitled to grow and develop as a child; a child cannot be turned into a breadwinner under any guise.
There are so many other inadequacies under the current Act. We are trying to improve our capacity for tracing of assets so that we can trace the assets of those that are arrested. We are trying to change our laws. From experience, we found out a lot of native doctors are complicit, particularly in relation to external trafficking.
These girls are made to take oath with their body parts, and these native doctors actually perpetuate some of these crimes. We want to add some penal offences that were not included like conspiracy, facilitating etc, to ensure that we have a stronger and more modern legislation.
Talking about external trafficking, what is the relationship between your agency and international organisations?
We do have a very good relationship. All the European countries actually partner with NAPTIP. We share information about what is going on, and there was this information of the staggering number of Nigerian citizens in their territories involved in prostitution and other forms of exploitative labour. We also give them information on how to help to prosecute those arrested within their jurisdiction.
They assist NAPTIP in capacity building. We have a very strong working relationship with the European government and the embassy of the United States of America.
What is the implication of the recent US Department’s downgrade of Nigeria to the second tier of countries working against the scourge of trafficking?
I would say it is not very good but we have noted the reasons for the downgrade and quite a number of reasons are actually country wide. They want to be sure, given the sheer staggering number of Nigerians abroad, that Nigeria steps up its anti-trafficking law enforcement and that the government allocates sufficient fund for that purpose and to show enough strong or political will to tackle the issue of human trafficking because obviously, it is an abuse of human rights.
We are working very effectively with the Immigration Services, Police and the SSS to see that we kind of collaborate closer to confront this scourge that is eating deep into the moral fabric of our society. Going by the reports, Nigeria needs to do a lot, but we are working on that and hopefully very shortly, we should be able to get back on the right path.
What are the assurances from government concerning funding?
Well, we have brought this to the attention of the attorney-general of the federation who is the supervising minister for the Ministry of Justice, and we have written to the minister of finance requesting for additional funding for some of the occupational activities that NAPTIP needs to do going forward.
Hopefully, the 2013 budget would reflect an increase in allocation that will enable us to facilitate the plans that we have already started to put in place.
Recently, over a hundred Nigerians were rescued from Mali but we didn’t hear much thereafter.
First of all, under the Act, victims are entitled to protection and what we try to do as an agency is to protect them. When they come in, we launch a rehabilitation process and they go through psycho-social counselling.
Then, we put them through vocational training and strategically put them back to society in order to minimise the possibility of stigmatisation. We cannot continue to put them on the pages of newspapers because then, you risk the chance of stigmatisation.
So what we do is to shield them from the press.
We have to let the world know what we have done. That is why you actually knew when the evacuation took place. We have trained quite a number of them in various vocations. Close to 40 of them graduated recently from the vocational training they acquired in various states.
Two of them have gotten jobs from the government. We are trying to empower them.
But as I said, we have the responsibility to protect them. We can’t tell you who they are and where they are, but we can assure you, with all sense of responsibility, that we discharge out duties to those victims on bringing them back.
We are working now to ensure that they are empowered, of course, despite limited funding. There are so much that the agency can do in terms of empowerment. We paid for the training, the transportation as well, because a lot of them couldn’t afford the transport to the training.
There is so much that goes into the rehabilitation and empowerment of victims. So it is a bit too much to expect that NAPTIP can do everything. But we are also reaching out to private individuals quietly to see if they can help us to empower the victims and some of them have been very supportive.
With cross-border trafficking on the rise, how do you liaise with the security agencies to check it?
You must not forget that Nigeria Immigration Services has an anti-trafficking mandate. They actually have anti-trafficking unit in all the states and zones of immigration service. It is the same with the police.
Immigration has really been a helpful partner, particularly in the area of external trafficking. But the porosity of our borders certainly does not help, I must admit. Then there is the ECOWAS free movement, so once someone has his papers, he can move from one country to the other. It is a bit of the challenge.
Even then the Nigerian Immigration Service is bracing up to the challenge. We give them training on victims profile and identification, so that they are able to quickly identify victims of trafficking.
One of the issues that have also presented some difficulties for NAPTIP was the non-domestication of migrant protocol. It is one of the proposed amendment to our legislation, so that of course will improve the capacity of NAPTIP, our partners and law enforcement agencies to deal more effectively with these issues.
Each time there is a news report of persons being trafficked, there are some states whose name salways come up. One of these states is Edo. Why is the scourge endemicin these states and what has your agency done to stem the tide?
Well, trafficking has many phases. There is internal trafficking and external trafficking. Unfortunately, for external trafficking, Edo, for some reasons, has acquired quite a bit of reputation for being very high on the index.
We are working very closely with the state government. NAPTIP has an office in Edo where we do public enlightenment, investigation and prosecution.But importantly, since I came in in September, 2011? I have taken steps to deliberately engage policy makers in Edo State to let them understand what is going on.
The effect on the image on the entity called Nigeria is real because every time you meet our partners, they actually always identify Edo state for featuring very high. So every 10 girls, for instance, arrested in Italy, about seven of them are from Edo state, which is a shame. But the governor is really quite keen on addressing the trend.
We engaged all the local chair persons in Edo state early this year and it is something that we will continue to do. But I believe that we need to step up activities in Edo State. Thankfully, there is a project we are doing now. Edo is one of the project states where we are going to do series of public campaign in order to let people know what is going on, so that they can be sensitised.
A lot of people actually want to send their children abroad, believing that they are going to secure a better life and not realising the kind of exploitation and humiliation their kids are going through.
We believe that by combining drama, documentaries and other public enlightenment initiatives, we should be able to significantly address the issue of trafficking in Edo and other states.