A stakeholder’s meeting on the review and validation of anti-trafficking training manual prepared and designed by Centre for Health Ethics Law and Development (CHELD) was held from the 23rd of November -25th of November 2022. In attendance were officials from IOM, the Nigeria Immigration Services drawn from each of the states in the Northwest, NAPTIP officials from each of the states in the Northwest, officials from NACTAL, representative of the DG, NAPTIP, officials from CSOnetMADE, and members from Civil Society Organisations with relevant expertise in the area of human trafficking, especially in the North-West.
The programme commenced at 9am with introductions from the most senior officers from NAPTIP and the Nigeria Immigration Service. Mrs Amaka Anionwu from IOM represented the Chief of Mission and read out her welcome remarks. According to her, there is a need to strengthen the capacity of service providers in the Northwest to ensure better provision of services to VOTs, she thanked the participant for being part of the process and further thanked them for their continuous support, commitment towards the successful implementation of the project in Nigeria. This was followed by a brief introduction by every person present during the stakeholder review. Subsequently, the ground rules were set, and penalties for breach were set.
An Overview of the CATs project was done by Mr Amos Ojo. According to him, Nigeria and Niger share common borders and traditions, inter-marriages, common religions etc., and because both countries share borders, people prefer to travel by road. He further explained that the CATs project involved improving the institutional capacity of Niger and Nigeria border officials to manage their borders, and secondly, the project aimed at strengthening border community residence to factors that facilitate and support trafficking in persons.
According to him, the project is been funded by the UK Government. The CATs project is divided into two phases. Phase one deals with the deployment of infrastructure to manage the information of migrants both at the local and international airports. And phase two, which deals with the subject matter. According to him, the border community have a key role to play in human trafficking.
In addition, the border community have relevant information concerning the routes of human traffickers and more particularly information which are not captured in the minders and there is a need to engage with them in other to solicit their cooperation.
He alighted some of the challenges facing the project which include; insecurity challenges in the North-West and rotation of Immigration and Nigerian Customs Service personnel. According to him, this rotation affects the capacity of these service providers. The floor was opened for the consultant to give an overview of the mapping exercise and the result of the mapping.
