The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), says it has so far secured 23 convictions of human trafficking offenders in 2019.

Director-General of the agency, Mrs. Julie Okah-Donli, disclosed this during an interactive session with newsmen on in Abuja.

She said that a total of 749 human trafficking and other related cases were reported to the agency out of which 538 suspects were taken to court for prosecution.

“Sixteen of these cases were won by the agency, while 876 victims were rescued from the clutches of human traffickers,” she said.

She attributed the success recorded in the outgoing year to the support the agency received from local and international partners, including the media.

“The agency embarked on several programmes in the outgoing year but it majorly concentrated on awareness creation and advocacy which resulted in regional and global engagement with policy makers and other stakeholders,” she said

According to her, NAPTIP, with the support of the International Centre for Migration and Policy Development (ICMPD), successfully mainstreamed trafficking in persons issues into the minimum standards curriculum of Colleges of Education.

She added that no fewer than 400 teachers had been trained by NAPTIP and the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE), on methods to adopt in teaching the course.

The NAPTIP boss said that plans were underway to deny some people their travel opportunity if they were not cleared by NAPTIP with the certificate of clearance issued to them by the agency.

According to her, several schools have written to the agency for clearance checks.

“These are the schools that are planning to travel out of the country for excursion purposes or something else”.

“The compliance record is low, majorly because more people are unaware of it, but with time, they will begin to comply; travel agents, who arrange ‘illegal’ travels may likely be hit by this new law.”

“We shall soon notify the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), and other sister agencies who are at all the entry and exit points to ensure that they assist us in enforcing the law,” she added.