The teenage girls who were rescued in March last year when on the verge of being taken out of Nigeria received certificates and sewing equipment in the presence of local representatives from Niger State and other partners such as the United Nations International Educational Fund (UNICEF).

The teenagers belong to a group of 67 kids discovered hidden in a truck in Lagos in March 2005.

In response to a call for funds from the National Agency for Prohibition of Traffic of Persons and other Related Matters (NAPTIP), the French government through its embassy, granted N5.5 million to the agency to take care of the kids and accommodate them before they could be returned to their villages.

Fourteen of them have just completed a training in tailoring and nine have also finished a knitting course, which started last November.

French Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Yves Gaudeul described the successful rehabilitation of the teenagers as a breakthrough in the multilateral efforts to arrest the scourge of human trafficking and lend support to countries like Nigeria, which have shown high interest in fighting the phenomenon.

With the help of the local authorities and with their family involvement, two training centres for a total of 40 kids were set up in Edati and Edogi councils in Kwara State.

The French Embassy contributed N4 million while NAPTIP, Niger and Kwara states contributed N3 million for the project.