Blue Bus: Key stats show anti-human trafficking campaign is moving in right direction

NAPTIP, through efforts and campaigns such as the ‘Blue Bus’, demonstrates its willingness to do what it takes to bring the scourge of human trafficking to an end, and stats prove that good progress is being made in that regard.

For example, in its annual report of 2020, NAPTIP dealt with 1,032 cases in total. Many of them included foreign travel with the intent of promoting prostitution [196 cases], procurement for sexual exploitation [146], child abuse [118], employment of kids as domestic workers.

In addition, inflicting grievous bodily harm [107 cases], selling and buying of human body parts [108 cases], and forced labour outside Nigeria [75 cases] were also prevalent, among others.

The arrest of suspected traffickers

As it has been well documented here, detecting and investigating these cases are not easy tasks.

Still, through the dedicated work of NAPTIP, a total of 442 men and 291 women were arrested to make a total figure of 733 arrests made in 2020 for various suspected cases of trafficking in persons.

Of these arrests made, 122 were for suspected foreign travel with the intent of promoting prostitution and 108 for the sale and purchase of human beings, while 104 persons were nabbed on the suspicion of purchasing persons with the intent of sexual exploitation.

People arrested for employing kids as domestic workers and inflicting grievous bodily harm on them were 88 in total, among others.

In 2020, the prosecution unit at NAPTIP received 236 cases from NAPTIP’s monitoring and investigation unit. 69 of those were successfully brought to court. In the year 2020, the Agency won 38 convictions with 51 traffickers convicted – 30 men and 21 women.

In a larger context, these convictions bring the total number of convictions won by the Agency from inception to 369, with 463 persons convicted in total.

How about rehab and reintegration?

In 2020 alone, the total number of victims rescued was 1,087, with 219 being males and 868 being females. The extent of work needed to complete this process of rehabilitation and reintegration has been highlighted here in detail.

So what does this mean for the Blue Bus?

Clearly, the Blue Bus is moving in the right direction with NAPTIP at the wheel.

With this track record of getting results in spite of the difficulties and numerous challenges that come with fighting the shape-shifting menace of human trafficking in Nigeria, the agenda and purpose of the Blue Bus campaign, whose focus lies on sensitization and raising awareness, looks on course to be achieved.

The Blue Bus project is funded by the Government of Switzerland.