NIGERIA — NAPTIP to Establish Regional Training Academy on Human Trafficking

The Agency is the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment of Nigeria’s response to address­ing the scourge of traf­fick­ing in per­sons. It is a ful­fill­ment of the country’s inter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tion under the Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Pro­to­col to pre­vent, sup­press and pun­ish traf­fick­ing in per­sons, espe­cial­ly women and chil­dren, sup­ple­ment­ing the Unit­ed Nations Transna­tion­al Orga­nized Crime Con­ven­tion (UNTOC).

A region­al train­ing acad­e­my for the teach­ing and learn­ing of counter traf­fick­ing issues is to be estab­lished in Nige­ria by the Nation­al Agency for the Pro­hi­bi­tion of Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons (NAPTIP).

The Direc­tor-Gen­er­al of the Agency, Julie Okah – Don­li dis­closed this in Abu­ja while inau­gu­rat­ing a 27 mem­ber Steer­ing Com­mit­tee for the estab­lish­ment of the Academy.

The NAPTIP boss said that the need to close the exist­ing knowl­edge gaps amongst Law Enforce­ment Agen­cies in the Coun­try and those with­in the West African region on issues involved in the fight against human traf­fick­ing as nation­al and inter­na­tion­al crime with huge impli­ca­tions for nation­al secu­ri­ty and sov­er­eign­ty has made it nec­es­sary for such an Acad­e­my to be established.

‘’The Steer­ing Com­mit­tee is to see to the suc­cess­ful estab­lish­ment of a stan­dard Region­al Train­ing Acad­e­my that will offer solu­tion to all insti­tu­tion­al needs and sat­is­fy the require­ments around the spheres of Human Traf­fick­ing and oth­er relat­ed mat­ters, towards effec­tive con­tin­u­ous capac­i­ty build­ing of NAPTIP Per­son­nel and oth­er rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers with­in the coun­try and the West African region, as well as meet­ing the needs of Nation­al and Inter­na­tion­al Researchers in the field of Human Traf­fick­ing’’, the Director–General said.

She explained that the Agency being the first of its kind in the world with a huge man­date of pre­vent­ing the crime; pros­e­cut­ing offend­ers; pro­tect­ing and assist­ing res­cued vic­tims as well as part­ner­ing with all stake­hold­ers to curb the men­ace has over the years pro­vid­ed a learn­ing ground for var­i­ous stake­hold­ers with­in and out­side the country.

‘’Many of our part­ners from the West African region have over the years relied on us to pro­vide train­ing on how best to fight the scourge bear­ing in mind our many years of expe­ri­ence in the fight against human traf­fick­ing. Many includ­ing those from Europe have been here on study tours and we need to prop­er­ly put in place a befit­ting place to help in rais­ing the capac­i­ty of our per­son­nel, those of our sis­ter Agen­cies and those from abroad espe­cial­ly from our sub-region’’, she stated

She also explained that the need to ensure prop­er iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and pro­fil­ing of both sus­pect­ed human traf­fick­ers and vic­tims of traf­fick­ing have made it imper­a­tive to build a region­al acad­e­my on counter human traf­fick­ing in Nigeria.

She said,” NAPTIP, just like any oth­er Orga­ni­za­tions, is com­posed of human and mate­r­i­al resources and the lev­el of employ­ee effi­cien­cy is direct­ly pro­por­tion­ate to the qual­i­ty of train­ing he is exposed to. Hence, no per­son­nel can deliv­er any pro­duc­tiv­i­ty beyond the lev­el of his capac­i­ty acquired through train­ing  

“Since its incep­tion, the Agency has had to build the capac­i­ty of its man­pow­er through impro­vised and hap­haz­ard ways, lead­ing to an unco­or­di­nat­ed man­pow­er devel­op­ment process and a total lack of a sin­gle and up-to-date train­ing data­bank, as is the stan­dard prac­tice in oth­er organisations.

“The Acad­e­my when ful­ly in place shall take full charge of the Train­ing needs of the Agency and be direct­ly respon­si­ble for the pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment of offi­cers of the Agency. It shall play a piv­otal role in research, doc­u­men­ta­tion, pub­li­ca­tion and train­ing of offi­cers to con­stant­ly update offi­cers’ knowl­edge on emerg­ing trends in TIP, thus pro­vid­ing the need­ed raw mate­ri­als for pre­cise policy/legal reviews that will pro­vide ade­quate response to the scourge of traf­fick­ing in persons.

The Direc­tor-Gen­er­al also not­ed that an enabling envi­ron­ment for the smooth take-off of the Train­ing Acad­e­my has already been put in place with the suc­cess­ful devel­op­ment of a stan­dard Train­ing Pol­i­cy, Train­ing Cur­ricu­lum, Train­ing Mod­ules, and Train­ers’ Guide by the Agency through the Euro­pean Union and ECOWAS spon­sored project enti­tled: Sup­port To Free Move­ment of Per­sons and Migra­tion in West Africa (FMM West Africa). The project was imple­ment­ed by the Inter­na­tion­al Cen­ter for Migra­tion Pol­i­cy Devel­op­ment (ICMPD).

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