Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, has raised the alarm that his state, Kano, is fast becoming potential endemic state for human trafficking in Nigeria.

This, he said, was perhaps, because of its status as an emerging business hub of the country, bearing in mind the giant infrastructural investments in the areas of massive road construction, rail line resuscitation, industrialization and rapid development of small and medium scale industries and other amenities.

Ganduje expressed hope that the situation will improve for good soon following the recent interventions of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) through the inauguration of the Kano State task force on human trafficking.

NAPTIP spokesman, Vincent Adekoye, in a statement indicated that Ganduje raised the alarm during the inauguration of the task force on human trafficking in Kano.

Ganduje in his remarks said, “We welcome the idea of the state task force on human trafficking. We shall partner with the Agency, and the task force would be given the desired support to achieve its desired goal.

“Evidently, the previous management of NAPTIP had narrowed their approach to issues of human trafficking alone. It’s therefore commendable to know that you have identified other societal problems and you are now tackling them,” he said.

Director General of NAPTIP, Senator Basheer Garba Muhammed, in his remarks, explained that the task force on human trafficking in a counter-trafficking initiative and a component of the awareness strategy of the Agency was aimed at securing the support of critical stakeholders and partners in the fight against human trafficking and other social problems in the country.

He further stated that Kano State is highly endemic in the statistics of rescue of victims of human trafficking as well as arrest and prosecution of offenders.

He said: “You may wish to know that from inception to date, NAPTIP has rescued a total of 16,277 victims of human trafficking, out of which 14,474 are Nigerians and 1,287 are from Kano State.

“This makes Kano state the most endemic state to human trafficking in northern Nigeria and the second in the country according to the states vulnerability index analysis. In the same vein, out of the total of 482 convicted persons by the Agency from inception, 110 were from Kano zonal command, representing the highest in country,” he noted.

He said that NAPTIP was worried about the ugly trend of the trafficking of young Nigerian women to the Middle East who are mostly from Kano and neighboring states, disclosing that in the last 10 days, NAPTIP has successfully rescued 104 victims.

“Additionally, the Kano Command, in the last two months, has successfully rescued another set of 12 Kano indigenes in Agadez, Niger Republic, who were victims of child labour and have since been successfully rehabilitated and re-united with their families in Kano.

“For this reason, NAPTIP is soliciting a collaboration with Kano State Government to be strengthened so as to bring this terror to an end. The challenges ahead of us are quite enormous. New initiatives must be developed for ensuring adequate resources for the rehabilitation of returnee victims of human trafficking and irregular migration in order to mitigate both menaces. Bigger and adequately equipped shelters, vocational training facilities, empowerment programmes and scholarships must be put in place for the victims,” Senator Muhammed stated.

(Daily Sun)

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