Rhoda Dia-Johnson, project manager of the School Anti-Trafficking Education and Advocacy Project (STEAP), said the initiative is working in five states to prevent further human trafficking.

Ms Dia-Johnson said on Monday in Benin that the project was funded by the Netherlands government and implemented by the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD).

The project manager said they were working in collaboration with the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) to prevent human trafficking among school-aged children.

She stated that ICMPD was working collaboratively in Ogun, Benue, Delta, Enugu, and Edo states.

Ms Dia-Johnson pointed out that school-based intervention targets the whole school community and added that students, parents, and teachers are all included.

The project manager disclosed that ICMPD, through STEAP, was intervening in 250 selected schools across the five pilot states, adding that 50 schools were selected in each state.

She explained that the benefiting schools were selected from public, private, and faith-based schools.

Ms Dia-Johnson further said that to achieve the set goals, the project has started inaugurating school anti-trafficking vanguards for peer-to-peer education on the prevention of human trafficking.

“This awareness is targeting everyone. We believe the parents can also discuss trafficking issues in their meetings, where they talk about the warning signs, how to identify victims, and where to report suspected cases, among other things,” she said.

Ms Dia-Johnson said ICMPD believes that it was cheaper to prevent human trafficking than to combat and rehabilitate the survivors.

The project manager emphasised they were currently carrying out research on emerging trends in human trafficking to identify their new methods of operation.

“The security challenges in Benue and Enugu States have affected our work progress. Like in Benue, some of the schools we selected early last year for the project are having security issues. So we have to change some of these schools and also strategise again with our interventions.

“We are doing one in IDP camps, trying to create awareness because from the report we are receiving, there are a lot of trafficking activities happening in the camps because they are already vulnerable.

“Some of them have a lot of children living with them in the camps. People keep coming to collect the kids, pretending to be relieving them, while in the real sense they are trafficking them,” she said.

(NAN)