Non-governmental organisation CLEEN Foundation said it has joined forces with the United Nations’ Women Organisation (UNWomen) and the Italian government to launch a project against trafficking of women and girls, as well as forced migration.
The novel project launched on Thursday in Abuja and titled “Preventing forced migration and trafficking of women and girls in Nigeria: Build resilience, promote sustainable development” aims at enabling a gender-sensitive policy environment that addresses forced migration and trafficking and increasing gender sensitive information and awareness-raising in source migration trafficking sites.
A statement from the group’s managing director, Benson Olugbuo, Ph.D, said: “The project also broadly seeks to support and strengthen the gender-responsiveness of interventions by the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) and other relevant government agencies.
“CLEEN Foundation will be responsible for implementing key activities in Edo and Lagos states that contributes to enabling gender-sensitive policy environment that addresses forced migration and trafficking is in place, whose design and implementation is influenced by women and girl’s rights organisations in source migration trafficking sites; increased gender-sensitive information and awareness-raising in source migration-trafficking sites contribute to the prevention of women’s irregular migration and trafficking.
“To this end, the foundation has embarked on active collaborative engagement with various government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), including NAPTIP and law enforcement institutions – Nigeria Police and the Nigerian Immigration Service – civil society and community representatives in both project states.”
According to Olugbuo, the intervention will involve the conduct of gender audit of protection services within existing shelters and safe homes and other services by front-line service providers. This will form the basis for the development of specialised tools and trainings to enhance gender-responsive service delivery for security, health and justice sector agencies and training for community-based women’s organizations to enhance their advocacy and communication capacities in the two project states.
During the inception meeting which took place online on Wednesday, June 25, 2020, the foundation commended the activities of government agencies charged with the mandates towards the prevention of forced migration and trafficking of women and girls in Nigeria, prosecution of enablers and traffickers and enforcement of extant relevant laws.
However, it called on the government to do more.
“We urge the Federal and state governments to show greater commitment in formulating more gender sensitive policies and establishing gender sensitive protection services for trafficked women and girls. CLEEN will continue to work collaboratively with key stakeholders in ensuring that the project outcomes are achieved.”
Olugbou went ahead to make a few recommendations which would make the project have better impact on the targeted groups.
“The government has to domesticate the VAPP Act, 2015 and the Child Right’s Act 2003 for greater protection of women and girls in Nigeria; Improve coordination among law enforcement actors (NAPTIP, NIS, NPF and others); Embark on vigorous investigation and prosecution and convict traffickers and impose stringent sentences to serve as deterrent; Support NAPTIP to achieve its mandate particularly in providing adequate victim care and expanding of protection shelters.
“Law enforcement should be professional, gender-sensitive and proactive in enforcing the relevant protective laws; should work with endemic communities to engender communal trust, awareness creation and partnership aimed at preventing further trafficking of women and girls and forced migration; oversight bodies of the law enforcement agencies should monitor the conduct of security personnel and commit to applying accountability measures in the event of any rights violations of trafficked women and girls by state security actors; equip Gender Desk offices across the state commands and strengthen anti-trafficking units and increase female representation across the law enforcement institutions.
“The media should ensure adequate, accurate and balanced reporting of the efforts of the government and citizens in the fight against human trafficking and forced migration of women and girls in Nigeria; be professional in their conduct and comply with their codes of conduct for transparent media coverage and avoid fake news, misinformation and disinformation.”
The organisation also appreciated the collective measures taken by international development organisations and national agencies in the fight against endemic issues of forced migration and human trafficking in Nigeria. Different stakeholders welcomed the project and committed to supporting the CLEEN Foundation and UNWomen to achieve the objectives of the project.
