Richard Young

The Ambassador of the European Union to Nigeria Mr Richard Young, said on Tuesday that 1,300 registered Nigerian citizens in the EU are victims of Human Trafficking.

Young said this at the EU Anti-Trafficking Day in collaboration with the NAPTIP and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

He said that every 18th of October was set aside to mark the day and that it is hard to find the actual number of those affected by the scourge.

`We have to remind ourselves always what is` trafficking’, this is the slavery of modern times and if not slavery itself. And is always hard to find numbers of those who are affected by the scourge.

“And the one place to look is at the statics produce by the EU in terms of the number of people that are registered in Europe as victims of trafficking.

“And the last report that was reported by us in 2015, noted that there were 22,000 registered victims in Euro of trafficking, of which 15,000 of them were EU citizens.

“ And six and half of them were none European citizens. I think I should let you know that about 1,300 were Nigerians.

“And indeed they were the largest registered number in Europe, so it brings you close to home,’’ he said.

According to him, that the EU goal is to address the menace by changing the numbers, identifying and protecting victims.

“So looking at all those numbers we have to remember that these are the numbers of registered citizen because this are the people that have been found of being trafficked.

“So if we look at the actual number of people being trafficked by the UNODC and the International Organisation of Migration are far larger.

“People estimated today are between 800,000 to one million people trafficked across borders each year.

“So our goal and objectives is to change those numbers and change those statics by, identifying, protecting and assisting victims of trafficking,’’ he said.

Speaking at the event, Abdulrazak Dangiri, the Ag. Director General of NAPTIP commended the efforts made by different ministries and organisations in the achievement of the purpose of spreading the message.

“For the purpose of spreading the fight and eradicating the menace, students from different parts of Abuja had written essay to commemorate the day. This is to put the drive and consciousness on children to embrace and actively participate in the crusade in their various schools.

“We appreciate all the interventions of our partners who had made the intervention of driving the message of trafficking in Nigeria.

“We commend the tireless efforts of our partners including the Federal Ministry of Information, Women and Youths Development, Employment, Labour and productivity and others.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that today mark’s the tenth edition of the Anti-Trafficking Day.