NAN-HG-14
Appeal
By Mustapha Sumaila
Abuja, April 27, 2017 (NAN) Julie Okah-Donli, the newly appointed Director-General, National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), has appealed to the Federal Government to extend whistle blowing policy to the fight against human trafficking.
She made the appeal on Thursday in Abuja at her maiden press conference.
She observed that if the policy was successful in the fight against corruption, it would also be successful if deployed to detect and prevent trafficking in persons.
She said that the agency would put forward a proposal that five per cent of the sales of the assets of traffickers be given to whistle blowers.
The new D-G stated that her administration would focus more on awareness creation, advocacy, enforcement of law and capacity building to fight human trafficking.
“As part of my vision concerning awareness creation, NAPTIP officers today commenced a weekly sensitisation campaign at diverse public places around the country.”
She declared that the era of trafficking promising Nigerian youths was over, adding that machinery would be put in place to secure the future of Nigerian youths.
She pledged that during her tenure, the agency would deploy techniques, skills and expertise to nab human traffickers.
“Through intelligence gathering, we will tackle traffickers from the point of conceiving ideas to the point of exploitation.
“We shall equip our operatives to detect and proactively burst human trafficking action from the bud.
“This means if traffickers decide to sail across the ocean, our men shall be ahead of them; if they fly in the air, we shall await their landing and if they decide to go through the death prone routes across the desert, we are there waiting” Okah-Donli declared. (NAN)
MS/HS/AEA
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Edited by Halima Sheji/Archibong Asuquo