On Thursday, the Nigeria Immigration Service, Bayelsa State Command, claimed to have discovered “new methods” used by suspected human traffickers to trade minor females.
According to a statement issued by the state Comptroller, Mr. Sunday James, the command highlighted the ECOWAS Travel Certificate as one of the methods used by human traffickers in their illegal operation.
According to James, the criminals use the ECOWAS travel certificate “to bypass security checks and suspicion and transport their victims to any of the regional body’s member states.”
“A victim by the name of Miss Maureen Ekpe was stopped and denied facility following a thorough inquiry, while the claimed trafficker is still at large, the victim was released to her family with a warning,” he said.
According to him, suspected human traffickers use the same travel certificate “to dodge stringent airport checks and lessen the level of suspicion due to the limits of countries to which the document is valid for travel.”
“The Command noted a dramatic increase in the rate at which young people patronized the ECOWAS Travel Certificate and undertook a risk analysis and a checklist of the age range that goes for it, the reasons cited for the travel, and countries that the holders of the document frequent,” James continued.
“It was on this reason that the unit directly responsible for the issuance, ECOWAS Unit, was tasked to add an additional security document to the requirement, call the Suspicious Travel Interrogation Form which was zero down to any suspected case and has yielded results.
“So far it has aided in rescuing two victims by refusing them the facility and denying countless others without real reasons after proper careful investigation.
“In one of the incidents, the trafficker, who is still at large after the victim was apprehended, triggered our alarm system and gave the command the idea behind the increased demand for the paper over the traditional passport.”
The state NIS command, according to James, will not relent until the syndicates are revealed, emphasizing that justifiable journeys without any link to Trafficking in Persons and Migrant Smuggling are established through the use of interrogative process and key intelligence instruments to combat the scourge.
While warning parents and guardians not to release their children and wards to those with secret identities and purposes, the state NIS Comptroller urged them to fight together.
