GBV: Centre urges NAPTIP to investigate abuses, rescue victims

Devatop Centre for Africa Development, has called on the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Person (NAPTIP) to investigate all human rights abuse cases before it.

The centre particularly want cases of Gender Based Violence (GBV), such as child abuse, rape, domestic violence, human trafficking and smuggling of migrants submitted to the agency to be investigated.

The Executive Director of the centre, Mr Joseph Osuigwe, made the call at a news conference on Wednesday in Abuja.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the centre was the pioneer of the “Talkam advocacy pidgin English programme on Cool FM 96.9, Abuja and WAZOBIA 99. 5FM, Abuja usually held 5pm on Saturdays and Sundays.

The programmed was designed to champion the course of human rights promotion and combating GBV in the society.

According to Osuigwe, within the last four months, the centre recorded 30 reports through the Talkam App, and that 20 of such reports were related to human rights abuses.

He said that six of such cases were child abuse, five domestic violence, four GBV including rape, four human trafficking and one case of smuggling of migrants.

Osuigwe said that anytime the centre received such reports, it carries out its analysis, get in touch with the victim to advice and get more details, thereafter forward such to NAPTIP for onward action.

He therefore called on NAPTIP to strengthen its investigation processes to arrest the situation before GBV cases get out of hand.

The centre director also called on Federal Government to provide more funds to NAPTIP to enable the agency nothing that, funding was the major backbone for any good investigation.

“The fact is that even though investigation of cases and rescuing of victim’s require huge resources, but we expect NAPTIP to strengthen its investigation, improve their responses, and ensure timely feedback.

“We also expect government to provide resources towards investigation and rescuing of victim’s, as there will be more reports of abuses, and hence more work for NAPTIP and other government agencies.

“Henceforth, we will be having a quarterly press conference to deliberate on human rights cases reported to Talkam and how government is responding to them,” he said.

Mr Olusayo Olubiyi, the Director of training and research development, NAPTIP, commended the centre for identifying with NAPTIP, adding that, the agency cannot fight trafficking alone because of the magnitude of the job.

Olubiyi who represented NAPTIP Director General, Mrs Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim solicited for support from all stakeholders to enable the agency win the war against trafficking.

Sulaiman-Ibrahim called on other agencies to join forces with NAPTIP to enable the agency nip the menace in the board.

“If other agencies are joining forces with NAPTIP, the days of traffickers will be numbered; prevention is key to fighting human trafficking, traffickers have coded language and the language is clandestine in nature.

“We need to be ahead of these traffickers, our investigation must be thorough, holistic, each and every one of us must do our duty the way it ought to be done,” she said.

Also, Mrs Chinyere Eyoh, Executive Director, Sexual Offences Awareness Response (SOAR) commended the centre for creating more awareness on human right abuses through the Talkam programme.

According to Eyoh, 99 per cent of trafficking victims are women and children and called on authorities to wake up to the responsibilities to curb the menace.

“We need more awareness because a lot people don’t know what trafficking is all about; we urged the media to do more of the awareness.

“We also urged the civil society organisation to do their part to make the world and the environment safer for all of us,” she pleaded.

Talkam programme is supported by the U. S. Embassy in Nigeria as the funder.