The Director General of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), Prof. Fatima Waziri- Azi has highlighted the importance of the role of parenting in the fight against human trafficking, while also proffering solutions to how best the menace can be curtailed.

Prof. Waziri-Azi stated this while speaking at a workshop session held in Abuja by the Oxford Policy Engagement Network (OPEN), in collaboration with NAPTIP, Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH), and Federal Ministry of Education (FMOE), United Nations on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC), Ministry of Women Affairs (MOWA) and Society for Family Health (SFH). She was among the many stakeholders who spoke at the workshop which had as its theme, "EVIDENCE-BASED PARENTING SUPPORT TO HELP PARENTS RAISE THEIR CHILDREN TO REACH THEIR FULL POTENTIAL IN LIFE”.

She noted that an investigation carried out by their organization revealed that failure in parenting has largely been responsible for the high rate of Human trafficking going on in the country, while also maintaining that the high poverty rate in the country contributed tremendously to why most parents indulge in the act knowingly or unknowingly.

The NAPTIP boss stated that the most painful aspect of them all is the trafficking of bellow-aged children and the manner they are subjected to abusive conditions by their masters or mistresses.

“When it has to do with children in our work, we see a lot of child abuse in the society we see a lot of domestic servitude where people hire other people’s kids and we see how a lot of these dead bondages affect children as it affects adults. That is where somebody actually pays for hire and gives to someone else to hire. We also see a lot of orphanages trafficking, this is where people to go rural places and suburban communities with less privileges and collect other people’s children and tell them that I have a better opportunity for their child to come to the city to school, and rather will sentence them and pass them off hands to where they’ll give them out to orphanages or as house helps to other families on a monthly hire. Then we also have a lot of buying and selling of children. But in these cases, we have a lot of young kids; kids as young as from 9 months, to 10 months stolen from another part of Nigeria and sold to another part of the country. Then we also have the very disturbing trend in the misuse of children which is the use of children for arms begging. Over a month ago we just finished a case around the Nyanya axis were we arrested 3-4 toddlers. These are kids that are about 9 months old. What she does is rent her children and other kids.

“These are the kind of very disturbing trends we see across the country and not just in the FCT. We work and interact a lot with families and communities, and provide counseling and alternative discrimination but there’s a gap in terms of a deliberate evidence base and sustainable strategies targeted at supporting parents in understanding the needs of the parents so that they can better provide and protect the needs of their children and also strategies that enhance the parents/child relationship. There are many cases where the parents just snap and come down on their children. These are things that can be easily avoided if these parents have received the necessary support.

Prof. Fatima however expressed optimism that things are changing for the better in recent times, “What this means is people are speaking up now. What use to be a norm in the past? What we think is a thing of culture; people don’t take it anymore. We see children falling out on their own parents. The scariest part of it all is that, initially we see these perpetrators trying to justify their actions. To them, it is part of parenthood that needs to imbibe certain ways of upbringing. So apart from humans having a tendency to just be evil, the reality is that parents need to be highly educated on parenting especially single mothers/ single parenting needs programmes; sustainable programmes,” she concluded.

Dr. Rita Tamanbang of the University of Ilorin highlighted some of the progress made by the sustainable Developmental Goals for Adolescents in the country saying, “Here are the accelerating progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for Adolescents in Nigeria; such as: end of all forms of malnutrition; prevention of substance use; all girls and boys complete primary education; increase relevant skills for employment; universal access to sexual and reproductive health; reduce all forms of violence and related deaths; no violence perpetration; no community violence; end violence against children; Body Mass Index (BMI) for age stunting; no reported use of alcohol, or tobacco in the past 30 days; appropriate age for class based on the Nigerian Ministry Education recommendation; no report of school absenteeism in the past 30 days; no report of not being able to concentrate in the past 12 months; no report of shoplifting snatching a purse, vandalizing or burglary in the past 12 months; no onset of sexual intercourse on or before the age of 14 and/ or use condom during last sexual encounter; no report of physical attack in the past 12 months; and no report of rape and/ or fondling of body parts.

Meanwhile, the National Project Officer of the United Nations on Drugs and Crime, Dr. Akanidomo Ibanga in his submission said that the SDG goals is already a project of the UN and would support OPEN in her execution if proper strategies and agencies are put in place for the UN to work with.