The International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), in collaboration with the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons , (NAPTIP ),has trained over seventy teachers drawn from three colleges of Education in the Asaba cluster on Anti-Human Trafficking .
The organisers of the training said it was a step down capacity building workshop on the recent national-level Training of Trainers held in Enugu and was geared towards strengthening the integration of anti-human trafficking content into the education sector.
Zonal Commander, NAPTIP Benin Zonal Command in charge of Edo and Delta States, Mr Sam Offiah said the training was to improve the capacity of lecturers drawn from colleges of education, who will in turn cascade the knowledge they acquire at the workshop to the students and other members of their various school communities, to that they would be well informed about the issues and trends of human trafficking in schools.
In his paper presentation , the NAPTIP Benin Zonal Commander advocated a political will and a societal change in combating the challenges in the fight against human trafficking.
Affiah said, ”This will go a long way. The government should look inward to see how it will restructure and strengthen the criminal justice system of our country. This will help us in combating the issue of human trafficking and other related offences , and we will give credit to whom it is due, which is the government”
The ICMPD Schools Anti -Trafficking Education and Advocacy Project Officer for Delta State, Ijeoma David Ukoko, said the program funded by the Government of Netherlands was to train the school community with anti- trafficking education.
She stated that the essence of strengthening the capacity of teachers of colleges of education with anti trafficking education was informed by the need to integrate issues of trafficking into the curriculum of colleges for the education of students as part of measures to stop human trafficking.
David Ukoko stated further, ”We are talking about anti-trafficking education because it is preventing the menace in society. Trafficking is not just a cross border but it’s domestic. It’s a pipeline. How can we stop feeding this pipeline. How do we stop the supply side. There is a demand side which is checkmated by NAPTIP by prosecution. The supply side means that we have to prevent people from being made vulnerable to trafficking”
”As a country and region in the world, Netherlands is also one of the destinations for trafficked victims. So, as much as they are very much in tuned in preserving and conserving human rights, it is also important for the country of the victims to know that this is happening. So, it’s a partnership. How can we support you in this , to prevent the inflow where they will now meet an unpleasant ending . It’s a collaboration. Hence, the Government of Netherlands will fund the STEAP Project through ICMPD”
According to the STEAP Project Officer for Delta State, ”This is a step down training. Last year 2024, there was a training of trainers for colleges of education lecturers so that they can better integrate anti-trafficking curriculum; design ways , means and methods of integrating it into the school curriculum .We know that STEAP focus is a whole school community. So, from the teachers,the trainers: cascading it down to the students .”
Continuing, she said, ”We have already sensitized some of the SBMC or PTA members, the heads of schools, the vanguard coordinators. Now, we are not going to do this in isolation when we have teachers being churned out yearly.What do we do? We target the source of the teachers , which are colleges of education. So, we train and sensitive them, so that they can in turn find out ways and means of transmitting this information they have acquired here into the school curriculum, so that beyond STEAP, beyond ICMPD, the project is sustainable, and it becomes something that is integral within the school community”
There were various paper presentations including the guidelines for implementation of Trafficking in Persons Content in NCE Minimum Standards by Achi Anthony Ndubisi of Federal College of Education Technical Asaba.
Head, Counseling and Rehabilitation Unit of NAPTIP, Stephen Selowo and the Chief Intelligence Officer NAPTIP, Mrs Eneh Okeoghene made presentations on Migration and Counter- Trafficking Measures as well as on the Causes, Consequences and Trafficking related crimes.
Participants at the workshop thanked the organizers for the training which they described as key to tackling human trafficking .In a remark, the Secretary, Delta State Taskforce against Trafficking and Irregular Migration, Mrs Ijeoma Nwanze said the workshop was of great impact to Delta State as students in colleges of education in the state would be sensitized on the danger of trafficking , how to report trafficking cases, and ways to prevent it.
This, she said will make the students to be less prone to be victims of trafficking. ”This event is part of a series of events for actualizing the STEAP Projects , and we are glad that beyond the secondary schools, we are engaging colleges of education teacher”, Nwanze stated.
