Sensitization, Appropriate legislation can stop child labour, human trafficking -Osun NIS Comptroller, Idowu

The Comptroller of Immigration, Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Osun State Command, Mr Adebowale Idowu has advocated the use of right legislations and adequate sensitization for the citizens as tools to curb human trafficking and child labour in the country.

Speaking at a one-day seminar with the theme “Migrant Smuggling and Human Trafficking/Child Labour, Combating the Menace and the Way Forward”, Idowu disclosed that 78 percent of victims of trafficking in person in Nigeria are between 8-year-old and 22-year-old.

The seminar which was organised by the Osun State Command of the NIS in Osogbo attracted top personalities in the state including the Speaker of the Osun State House of Assembly, Alhaji Najeem Salaam who delivered a keynote address

Idowu described migrant smuggling, human trafficking and child labour as human right violation and noted that Nigeria remains a source, transit and destination country for trafficking in persons.

According to him, “The forces driving this illicit trade in human beings must be defeated through appropriate tools of public sensitization and awareness, appropriate legislation and right socio-economic policies particularly targeted at the youths.”

In his keynote address, Salaam urged the federal government to equip the Nigeria Immigration Service better with latest technology that could be used to combat human trafficking.

His words “we should begin from recruiting more staff that would be adequate to man our borders. But because the criminal network of human trafficking has devised ways of evading border control, monitoring our porous borders with technology like internet canopy, strategic camera and other machinery should be deployed with standby crime bursting team”.

The Comptroller General of NIS, Mr. Muhammad Babandede who was represented by the Assistant Comptroller General, Zone F, Mr Julius Ogwu said the immigration was collaborating with international organisations to tackle the problem of human trafficking.

He cautioned the youths that are struggling to travel abroad in search of job not to be desperate and assured them that they could make it in Nigeria if they are productive and hardworking.