‘Giving your child to someone to train, not best option’

Mr Abayomi Rotimi Mighty is the Executive Director of Women Trafficking and Child Labour Eradication Foundation (WOTCLEF). In this interview, he reveals that most students in public schools are internally trafficked.  WOTCLEF, a giant in anti-human trafficking suddenly went silent, what is responsible for lack of activity by WOTCLEF?  Well, I will put it the […]

Mr Abayomi Rotimi Mighty is the Executive Director of Women Trafficking and Child Labour Eradication Foundation (WOTCLEF). In this interview, he reveals that most students in public schools are internally trafficked. 

WOTCLEF, a giant in anti-human trafficking suddenly went silent, what is responsible for lack of activity by WOTCLEF?

 Well, I will put it the way of the founder of WOTCLEF that it is a silent achiever.  For instance, I will tell you that WOTCLEF started the first shelter ever, in the history of this country, for rescued trafficked victims, victims of child labour, abuse  and all those things. I can boldly tell you that the shelter is still very much active, with all the support services being maximally provided for the children. So that alone for me is a huge achievement. 

I think the only missing link there is that WOTCLEF is focused  on making impact without necessarily making noise. Sometimes that might not necessarily be good for an organisation. However, I will go with the founder’s submission that the organisation is a silent achiever because it is difficult for you to find organisations founded by wives of political office holders, which remain ongoing after they leave office. A lot of the pet projects have all gone down the drain, but WOTCLEF has not gone that way. It still operates in the six geopolitical zones.    

Are you satisfied with the way agencies handle victims of trafficking, in view of the bill sponsored, to look into the treatment of rescued victims?  

Basically, these are people that have been through a lot of hard times and the way they should be handled is with care, love and height of compassion. So basically I totally agree with the new bill because it is an improvement on the old one. I think it was under the NAPTIP Act 2016, sponsored by UNODC. There was a lot of improvements on the act which of course I believe brought another level of upgrade to the practice.  Interestingly looking at WOTCLEF’s concept of sheltering is unique because, number one, we don’t just keep them for a short period of time because usually when we rescue a victim, we try to stabilize them. Under the rehabilitation plan, you’re home, you can feel safe, you are not going to go through any embarrassment from anyone. 

Basically, when that is ongoing, we start our investigation, to be able to establish some facts and all that. Sometimes you find out some of these children, boys and girls, young people, don’t have a place to go back to. Once the investigation is established you are able to know the family, you can begin to talk about reintegration, you know, reuniting them with their families but sometimes, it’s either they don’t have a family to go back to or they have a family but they risk being trafficked again. 

So at that level WOTCLEF came up with this concept of not just a shelter but home to keep the rescued victims for as long as they are empowered to be able to face life situations out there. 

We have some of our rescued victims that have been in WOTCLEF homes for more than 10 years. We had a couple of children we discovered, some of them are in the university now. We give some of them psychosocial and educational support,  in terms of clothing, basic needs, feeding and all that. So I am of the opinion that the NAPTIP Act, especially the upgraded one has been very keen in ensuring that the best practice is improved upon. 

I am also of the opinion that it has not been fully implemented because even the former NAPTIP Act was not fully implemented not to talk of the new one, which is an upgrade of the former one. So I think that it is on course, though we have a lot to do to ensure that whatever is written doesn’t just end up in the papers but in impacting the lives of people through practices and direct implementation of the recommendations in the NAPTIP Act.

Recently you said that most students in schools are internally trafficked. How? 

 If you go to all the public schools in Abuja, more than 60% of the children in public schools in the FCT are into child labour and domestic servitude. Some are forced into labour, some are deceived into domestic servitude. Most of them are internally trafficked, we have rescued a couple of them and we have reunited them with their parents because most of the parents of the girls – most of them are girls – do not even know what their children are going through in Abuja. They want them to be in Abuja but they do not have any idea what the children are going through. 

We have reunited a couple of girls with their families and it is a big problem that if we do not curtail, it will implode and of course explode. 

WOTCLEF is making so much noise about internal trafficking, trans-border trafficking, international trafficking. Internal trafficking is becoming the order of the day in this country and it is not peculiar to one state, it is found in all states in Nigeria directly or indirectly. So these are issues that we are looking at so it is very correct that a lot of these children in public schools are internally trafficked.  

When you talk about internally trafficked, for what purpose and to whose benefit is it perpetrated?

 Most of the time it is for forced labour, deception into domestic servitude, and the children are also subjected to all manner of maltreatment as a result. Most of these children are from poor parents who cannot afford their wellbeing so they just give them out to live with one aunty or the other. They are moved away from their parents and their villages to the next city or town, Abuja for instance, and most get into domestic servitude as they are deceived into forced labour. 

So, what is the way forward?   I think the way forward is to actually fully implement the NAPTIP Act  and practice it.  WOTCLEF has been looking into the Act, the older one and the newer one, beautiful plans. The one prepared by WOTCLEF, excellent, the build up on it, sponsored by UNODC, wonderful. We need to stop talking, or writing, we need to start acting. We need to look into the NAPTIP Act and please carry out those things. NGOs need to go to the field, advocacy needs to get into the next level, awareness needs to be improved on. 

At WOTCLEF we are working on our programmes restructuring, it is really going to take on the world by a storm, positively. And I believe that it will inspire NAPTIP, NACTAL and several other organisations.  

We are coming out with a big bang against trafficking of persons. We would fight trafficking with our entire creative arsenal and that I can assure the world; and of course, we’ll make sure we continue to work to ensure that we have a free and safe society for all.