The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons says it rescued seven young women believed to be victims of human trafficking after it raided a popular hotel in Zamaru, a few kilometres from the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.
The girls “were being prepared to be trafficked to Baghdad, Iraq, for exploitation,” NAPTIP’s Chief Press Officer, Vincent Adekoye, revealed in a statement Sunday evening.
The statement is titled, ‘NAPTIP raids popular hotel near Abuja Airport harbouring Iraq–bound suspected human trafficking victims, rescues 7 victims.’
Adekoye said the operation, which followed a tip-off, also led to the arrest of the hotel manager who is currently being interrogated for allegedly harbouring the victims.
The hotel had been under surveillance after concerned persons raised the alarm over an unusual movement of young girls and strange-looking men within the premises —signs, NAPTIP says, pointed to the presence of a trafficking ring.
A preliminary profiling of the rescued victims revealed that six of them were recruited from Lagos, while one hails from Delta State.
They were allegedly lured with promises of “well-paying caregiving jobs in Iraq but later discovered they were being trafficked,” the statement read.
“They told me that I would do a househelp job in Baghdad and I would receive a good salary every month.
“I believed them because I know Baghdad is in another country. Dem no tell me say I dey go work for Iraq,” one of the victims tearfully recounted, Adekoye wrote.
This latest rescue adds to a growing number of interceptions by NAPTIP, which said it had prevented over 60 suspected victims from being trafficked through the Abuja airport in recent months to volatile and war-torn Middle Eastern countries.
Reacting to the development, NAPTIP’s Director-General, Binta Bello, expressed deep concern over the involvement of service providers in human trafficking, noting that the hotel served as a “muster point” for traffickers operating between Nigeria and the Middle East.
Represented by the Director of Research and Programme Development, Mr Josiah Emerole, the DG stated: “It is sad the way some service providers aid and abet the recruitment, transportation, transfer, and harbouring of Nigerians who are victims of human trafficking.
“The suspected victims are trafficked from different parts of the country and haboured in the hotel.
“The victims were being briefed on how to evade arrest and respond to questioning at the airport,” she added, noting that harbouring victims of trafficking is itself a punishable offence under the law.
Bello warned that the agency would now invoke the full weight of the law to prosecute individuals or entities found complicit in trafficking activities.
NAPTIP said it had intensified its manhunt for other members of the trafficking network believed to be operating in collaboration with criminal syndicates in Iraq.
“The manager of the hotel is being quizzed and we have also intensified the manhunt for other members of the trafficking gang working in collaboration with other criminal elements in Iraq,” the DG stated.
