The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons has raised the alarm over the alleged use of civil society organisations as fronts by human traffickers to gain access to vulnerable communities and traffic children.
The agency said traffickers were increasingly exploiting communities affected by insecurity, including farmer-herder conflicts, by masquerading as representatives of non-governmental organisations and offering assistance to families.
The Head of Press and Public Relations of NAPTIP, Vincent Adekoye, disclosed this on Tuesday in Abuja while speaking at a joint press briefing of security spokespersons.
Adekoye said the agency had discovered that traffickers were approaching distressed communities under the guise of running educational and humanitarian programmes.
He said, “Traffickers also now masquerade under the umbrella of civil society organisations and move to communities that are already distressed; moving to communities where you have farmer-herder crises, and promising parents that, ‘Oh, we will take your children back to school,’ under a fake back-to-school project.
