Police arrest suspected traffickers with 67 kids

From The Guardian
By Regina Akpabio, Bertram Nwannekanma, Isaac Taiwo and Dan Enuma

Monday March 7, 2005—SIXTY-seven children tucked in one refrigerated truck. They criss-crossed several states and finally berthed in Lagos. Luckily, some eagle-eyed policemen spotted the truck.

It was indeed a long and tortuous journey that reportedly started somewhere in Mokwa, Niger State and terminated in Lagos with the kids' suspected captors landing in the hands of the men of the Lagos Police Command.

Time and again, the blue refrigerated truck with registration number Benue XA 103 BRT had been stopped by the Police and Customs officers for routine inspection but the children were not seen. The driver and his companions in the front compartment had perfected their strategy and easily talked the police in with: "We are carrying frozen fish to Lagos."

The suspected child-traffickers were allegedly helped by the naira notes, which they doled out to the security men.

But that was until they drove into Lagos and ran into a Police Patrol on Cemetery Road in the Amukoko area of Irepodun Local Council. They chorused their slogan: "We are carrying frozen fish." Then they showed the patrol team crisp naira notes. This time it did not work. "We want to see the fish you are carrying," the policemen replied. Neither the pleas of the women, the arguments of the men, nor the upward review of the bribe to N5,000 could weaken the resolve of the policemen who insisted: "We want to see the fish you are carrying."

The game was indeed over and when the doors of the refrigerated container were opened, nothing could have prepared the police officers for what they saw: 67 children between the ages of four and 16, packed inside the vehicle. Most of them were girls and were allegedly picked up, lured, kidnapped or brought from as far as Taraba State. But the journey to Lagos took off from Niger State, the end of which may be a matter of conjecture had providence not intervened. All the children, especially believed to have come from Mokwa have tribal marks. None of them could speak English language. They rather spoke Tiv language. The blue vehicle, which is a kind of container vehicle, was parked at the police station as at 5.00 p.m. while the children were camped in the rooms in the station when The Guardian visited yesterday. A police officer who simply gave his name as Samuel said: "Most of the women live in Lagos but travel to the villages to gather the children to give out as house maids in Lagos for a fee."

The policemen said that the women who are the principal agents claimed that they were conveying goods but when the policemen insisted on searching the truck they offered the officers N5,000 as bribe. Samuel said: "When we opened the vehicle about 67 children and women were in the air conditioned container."

The news of the incident attracted a crowd from the neighbouring area, who rushed to the station to have a look at the children and the suspects. The surging crowd extended to the Cemetery Road and Iludun Street. Both gates of the police stations were however, locked to prevent the crowd from gaining entry. One of the women in the vehicle suspected to be a trafficker gave her name as Alhaja Fatimo. She claimed to be returning from a "festival" with the children. According to her, they were returning from Mokwa in the North but when they got to Ilorin, Kwara State, their vehicles were attacked by armed robbers, who shot at the tyres. She said that after the departure of the robbers, they saw the refrigerated vehicle and pleaded with the driver to assist them. Fatimo said after much entreaties, the driver agreed to carry them to Amukoko, Iyana Ajegunle, which she claimed was their destination. She said that the children were either siblings of other women in truck or their apprentices. Her claims were debunked by the police, who said she had confessed to child trafficking along with some other suspect she was yet to mention.

The Divisional Crime Officer (DCO) of Pako Police Station, Amukoko confirmed the story and the confession of Fatimo, who is helping the police in their investigation of the saga.`

 

Nigerian police 'free' children

From BBC online

Monday, 7 March, 2005—Police in Nigeria's main city, Lagos, have uncovered a suspected case of child trafficking after they stopped a truck carrying 56 children.

The children, aged between seven and 14, were concealed in a metal cargo container, normally used for fish.

Many of them were dehydrated after travelling in the container for more than 24 hours from northern Nigeria.

Police believe the children were likely to be used as domestic workers in Lagos. A woman was arrested.

"The woman said she brought them with the consent of their parents to be distributed as house-helps in Lagos," police spokesman Ademola Adebayo said.

The children have been taken to a police station in Lagos, where local residents are giving them water, food and clothes.

Eyewitnesses say they were sweating profusely and looked frightened and disorientated.

Outlawed

The International Labour Organisation estimates that at least 200,000 children are trafficked within West Africa annually.

The BBC's Anna Borzello in Nigeria says children as young as six are placed with strangers in the city and promised an education in return.

More often, however, they are treated badly and forbidden to go to school, our correspondent says.

The government has pledged to tackle the problem and last year outlawed trafficking and set up an agency to deal with offenders.

But officials say it is hard to crack down in a country where people are poor and where trafficking has become an accepted way of life.

 

Nigeria Rescues More Than 100 Kids from Traffickers

 

 

From, ABC online
By George Esiri

 

March 7, 2005—LAGOS, Nigeria (Reuters) - Nigerian police have rescued more than 100 children from child traffickers over the last three days, including 56 discovered at a checkpoint in a frozen food truck, authorities said Monday.

Thousands of children are trafficked every year across Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, where there is a strong tradition among families in impoverished, rural areas to send children to the cities in the hope of a better life.

Once there, many fall into the hands of criminal networks which sell them locally or abroad to work as beggars, slaves or prostitutes.

Police said they arrested a woman Sunday after she was caught trying to take 56 children from Mokwa, a remote town in the central Niger state, to work as domestic servants in the commercial hub Lagos.

The children were crammed into a truck used for transporting frozen food, although the refrigeration was not switched on.

"The woman said she brought them with the consent of their parents to be distributed as house-helps in Lagos," police spokesman Ademola Adebayo said. "We are transferring the case to the Criminal Investigation Department."

The children were detained in a police station in the Ajegunle area of Lagos Monday. A crowd of more than a hundred people, some apparently associates of the suspects, gathered at the gates, harassing journalists.

Friday, 52 children from Togo were freed on Nigeria's western border with Benin by border police, authorities said.

Four traffickers, including a man who said he was a pastor at a pentecostal church, were arrested.

Arinze Orakwe, spokesman for the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, said this group was probably destined for forced labor in Nigeria.

"We have quarries in Nigeria which are prone to (using) child labor from Benin and Togo," he said.

Almost all these children have already been turned over to the Togolese embassy in Nigeria, he added.

In 2003, 500 children from Benin were rescued from granite quarries in Nigeria and repatriated.