Malian Justice Ministry has called on NAPTIP to come up with an MoU that would provide a proper framework to end the trafficking and repatriate Nigerian girls already trafficked.
DG NAPTIP said as part of effort to curb the menace of girls trafficking, her team met with the Ministry of Justice in Mali to find solution to the menace. During a presentation to the ECOWAS Parliament at its First Ordinary Session on Saturday, NAPTIP Director-General Julie Okah-Donli told members of parliament that Nigerian girls were being sold for between N210,000 and N240,000 to work as prostitutes. Presenting the report of the fact-finding mission to Mali, Okah-Donli said that after being sold, the girls were made to pay back between N1.08 million and N1.2 million, usually within eight months, to their madams. She said that gaining their freedom from their madams, the girls would then go into business, making money for themselves through prostitutions before graduating to madams of their own. “There are more than one million Nigerians residing in Mali. About 20,000 of these Nigerians are girls believed to be victims of trafficking and the number increases by 50 per day. “Many victims are deceived to leave their livelihoods in Nigeria for greener pastures in ‘Mali.
Some of the victims are abducted from Nigeria, including those that arrive in school uniforms. “On arrival at the border town between Burkina Faso and Mali, many of the girls are sold off for CFA 350,000 to 400,000; their new owners then make them pay back about CFA 1.6 million to CFA 2 million with one CFA being 0.6 Naira,” she said. The mission further recommended that all motor-parks through which the girls were trafficked should be sanitised and efforts made to stop extortion of Nigerians travelling to or through the aforementioned countries, she said. “There is need for comprehensive sensitisation of rescued victims before repatriation and a comprehensive blueprint worked out for tracing, empowerment and rehabilitation of victims,” Okah-Donli said.
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