The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) on Thursday said that plan was underway to initiate a micro-finance scheme for survivors of human trafficking.
The Director-General of NAPTIP, Dr Fatima Waziri-Azi, disclosed this at her maiden news conference in Abuja to intimate the public on her plan for the agency.
She said that the agency would make more efforts to ensure that survivors of human trafficking had access to a comprehensive rehabilitation scheme that would include mentoring.
According to her, victims will have access to existing Federal Government initiatives like Micro and Medium Scale Enterprises (MSME) grants, shared facilities and innovation hubs.
She said that all these would be achieved through diligent implementation of a four-point strategic priorities in line with the five (5ps) strategic pics of the agency.
Waziri-Azi listed the (5ps) of the agency as policy, prevention, protection, prosecution and partnership respectively.
She said that the agency would enhance conviction of high-profile traffickers and increase the prosecution of cases of Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV), noting that the agency had had 487 convictions since its inception in 2003.
She disclosed that the agency shall not only go after high-profile traffickers, but shall collaborate with partners and destination countries of these traffickers to recover and return all their illicit assets.
The director-general stated that the plan would be achieved through proactive and diligent investigations as well as prosecutions aimed at eliminating weaknesses in prosecution.
Waziri-Azi stated the agency would also collaborate with the judiciary by sensitising the judges on the best way to handle human trafficking cases, enhance witness protection mechanism as well as embolden victims and witnesses to testify.
She further said that the agency would focus on the implementation of the Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) Act 2015, and enhance capacity building of investigators, prosecutors, intelligent officers and care-givers.
“My mission is to consolidate on the achievement of the agency, and coordinate the responses of the state and non state actors in the fight against human trafficking in the country.
“We are determined to take Nigeria back to the envious height as a leading country in counter-trafficking. It is on record that Nigeria was one of the few countries to have full-fledged counter trafficking agency in the world and first in Africa.
“Other African countries came to Nigeria to understudy the work of NAPTIP and subsequently set up similar agencies.
“In the course of this, Nigeria attained the Tier 1 status in the United States ranking of countries’ compliance to the minimum standards in the fight against human trafficking (US department of State Trafficking Report).
“In recent years, Nigeria has had to slide away from Tier 1 to Tier 2, then to Tier 2 Watch list and this year back to Tier 2, due to the Federal Government increasing efforts considering the impact of COVID-19 on its anti-trafficking efforts compared to previous years.
“The report further states that the government did not meet the minimum standards in several key areas,” she stressed.
