A 17-year-old Oyo State girl who was detained in Kebbi while reportedly travelling to Libya has been turned over to NAPTIP by the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS).
When immigration officers detained the girl in Kebbi’s Yauri Local Government Area, she was travelling alone.
This information was provided to newsmen in Birnin Kebbi on Tuesday during a briefing by the state’s NIS Comptroller, Mrs. Rabi Bashir-Nuhu.
The comptroller said that although the girl said she was travelling to Sokoto, “we have the belief that she is being trafficked to go to Libya to be used for labour exploitation, prostitution or organ harvesting”.
According to Bashir-Nuhu, the girl was stopped on November 26 at the Yauri border unaccompanied, raising questions about her whereabouts.
She claims that the teen stated she was sent by her mother to meet a woman named Zainab in Sokoto; however, when invited to the NIS office in Kebbi, Zainab claimed to be ill.
“This made us to believe that the girl was a victim of trafficking; she has no any document, has nothing and not even a penny.” Bashir-Nuhu added.
The comptroller said it was disheartening that in spite of warnings by NIS and its partners, parents still allow their children to undertake such perilous journey.
Receiving the victim, the state Commandant, National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), Alhaji Misbahu Iyya-Kaura, said the agency would investigate the matter.
He said human trafficking was an organised crime that required concerted efforts to contain.
“We are going to investigate the recruitment, transit and the final destination of the victim,” he said, and commended NIS for collaborating with the agency to tackle human trafficking in Nigeria.
