Executive Director, Integrated Anti-Human Trafficking and Community Development Initiative (INTACOM-Afrca), Hope Okoye, wants government at all levels to summon the courage to tackle the menace of human trafficking.
Okoye made the call in an interview with Core Truth ahead of the 2025 World Day against Human Trafficking, observed on 30th July, every year.
Speaking on the theme, “Human trafficking is organized crime, end exploitation”, Okoye regretted that prominent individuals and big organizations sustain the crime.
“There are big organizations, companies at the destination countries which are looking for cheap labor. They fuel this crime.
“Some highly place politically exposed individuals are behind it because it’s a multi-billion-dollar business.
“You always place it among the three – trafficking in arms, trafficking in drugs, and trafficking in human beings.
“They use the victims for forced prostitution and they suffer in silence because they are irregular migrants.
“Some of them are into forced labour. The people who brought them receive the pay from the company, while the company exploit them, put them in hazardous and exploitative situations.
Roles of security agencies, justice system actors
She emphasized the critical roles of law enforcement agencies and justice system actors in dismantling the organized crime.
“To dismantle them, there must be proper investigation and collaboration. There should be bilateral or multilateral cooperation between countries of origin, transit, and destination.
“If we must end exploitation, once law enforcers arrest anyone, they should extract all necessary information to track other members down.
“We cannot talk about dismantling them unless we are able to arrest all members of the syndicates.
Okoye explained that the 2025 theme compels stakeholders to work together to end the scourge or reduce it to the barest minimum.
“There are people who recruit the victims, those who move and transport them, and those who monitor them, to make sure that they get to the destination.
“There are also people whose duty is to receive them, to buy them, and to even sell them or exploit them.
Diligent prosecution
The INTACOM-Africa ED prescribed diligent prosecution of human traffickers as a major way to reduce the incidents.
“If they are being prosecuted at a destination, transit country, and prosecuted at the country of origin, the fight will be effective.
“Government should demonstrate the political will to prosecute the criminals without fear nor favour.
Okoye also harped on the need to protect the interest of the victims during prosecution.
“If we are focusing on prosecution, do you also consider the safety, rehabilitation and reintegration of the victims?
“You must protect the victim from the syndicate, because if you release her, the syndicate members are still there.
“They will come after her or him and even the family. Arresting all of them is one way of assuring the safety and protection of the victim,” she concluded.
