The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) on Saturday said it is working with Facebook to curb online child abuse.
This was disclosed by the NAPTIP Zonal Commander, South-East, Mrs Nneka Ajie on Saturday in Enugu during a press briefing to mark the 2022 World Day Against Trafficking in Persons.
She said the agency is also working with the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in carrying out its activities.
Mrs Ajie said, “NAPTIP has concluded partnership with Facebook and NCMEC to set up Amber Alert Nigeria, due to the increase in state and interstate trafficking, buying and selling of children and cryptic pregnancies.
“The Amber Alert is a situation, whereby, Facebook sends alerts to targeted Facebook community to help find missing children in Nigeria.”
She said human trafficking is a modern day slavery with multi-dimensional ways of recruiting victims.
The commander also said that no fewer than 170 human trafficking cases had been reported in Enugu State in the last one year, adding that four convictions were recorded within the period.
On the theme of the 2022 celebration which is ‘Use and Abuse of Technology’, Ajie said that the new approach of recruiting victims involved the use of technology.
“Over 40 percent of victims are now recruited online and this has raised concerns considering the impact of the social media on our children,” she said.
In her remarks, Mrs Amarachi Kene-Okafor, the Enugu State Coordinator, Network Against Child Trafficking, Abuse and Labour (NACTAL), said that human trafficking had conquered cyber space.
Kene-Okafor said that the internet and digital platforms offered traffickers tools to recruit, exploit, and control victims.
