No hiding place for human traffickers – NAPTIP

The Director General, National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), Dame Julie Okah-Donli, says the conviction of British-based nurse, Josephine Iyamu, shows there is no hiding place for human traffickers. Okah-Donli said the   agency,   in   collaboration   with   other foreign partners and   precisely   the   law enforcement   agencies,   shall   continue   to smoke out suspected […]

The Director General, National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), Dame Julie Okah-Donli, says the conviction of British-based nurse, Josephine Iyamu, shows there is no hiding place for human traffickers.

Okah-Donli said the   agency,   in   collaboration   with   other foreign partners and   precisely   the   law enforcement   agencies,   shall   continue   to smoke out suspected human traffickers and made to face justice just like their counterparts in Nigeria.

NAPTIP   and   the National   Crimes   Agency (NCA) in the UK had, during a joint operation tagged ‘Operation REDROOT’, arrested the convicted human trafficker under the joint counter trafficking project called Joint Border Task Force (JBTF) and charged her before a Birmingham Court. Okah-Donli said the convicted Josephine Iyamu has become the first person to be convicted under new modern slavery laws, after being found guilty of trafficking five Nigerian women to Germany prostitution. Jurors were told the 51-year-old Liberia-born British citizen forced the women to swear oaths to hand over money to her during “juju” ceremonies. 

The ceremonies included forcing women to eat chicken hearts, drink blood containing worms, and have some powderish  substance rubbed into cuts, the court heard.

She was  convicted at Birmingham Crown Court of five-count charge of  arranging  or facilitating travel for sexual exploitation. Jurors also convicted Iyamu of perverting the course of justice by arranging for relatives of the   complainants in Nigeria to be arrested. Her husband, Efe Ali-Imaghodor, 60, was acquitted of doing acts intending to pervert the course of justice. 

Donli-Okah said the conviction of Josephine Iyamu will serve as a deterrent to other traffickers who believed that they would be protected outside Nigeria.