NAPTIP, the National Agency for the Prevention of Trafficking in People, has threatened legal action against any parent found renting out their children to trafficking networks for any number of exploitation motives.
The agency issues a warning about ongoing unwholesome activities of human trafficking gangs that specialize in trafficking children and employing such children for various exploitative purposes, including begging for alms. The agency’s warning is directed at Nigerians in general and residents of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in particular.
Professor Fatima Waziri-Azi, the director general of NAPTIP, revealed in the communiqué that the alleged trafficking syndicates specialize in gathering babies with the help of other gang members, hiring out these defenseless kids, and placing them at busy intersections, bus stops, and roadside rest stops where they solicit alms.
She explained that after the rescue of three of their victims, the agency started looking for the other members of the criminal group previously connected to this crime.
The agency’s press officer, Vincent Adekoya, signed a statement stating that NAPTIP is planning improved ways to combat these growing tendencies of human trafficking and other related crimes across the nation.
The DG disclosed that during a routine undercover operation by agents of the Agency’s Rapid Response Unit near the Abuja-Nyanya corridors, the agents were able to stop the syndicates and quickly rescue three infants who had allegedly been rented out by their mothers to the traffickers to beg for alms at a busy location in the Nyanya area for N3,000 per day for each child rented out.
With the assistance of other gang members, these suspected trafficking organizations specialized in gathering babies. They then hired out these innocent kids and placed them along the sides of busy intersections and bus stops where they were used as begging targets.
“Their method of operation is such that they will assign another older youngster to look over the kids while they are moved from one location to another and to make sure the big money is collected periodically.”
However, these newborns are regularly exposed to adverse weather conditions in an unclean and dusty environment, even in the presence of traffic and other forms of mistreatment.
“This awful development is one of the highest types of cruelty,” Professor Waziri-Azi lamented, “since these toddlers, whose ages vary from 7-9 months, are forced to deal with life-threatening situations regularly.”
In conclusion, she issued a warning that everyone involved, even parents who distribute their children for nebulous objectives, would be found and charged.
The agency claimed that it has also started talking with the appropriate government ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) about stepping up surveillance in the areas that have been identified as hotspots for street begging near the FCT.
Source: The Guidance
