Comptroller-General of The Nigeria Immigration Service Bayelsa State command Isa Jere Idris says it has uncovered the new strategy used by human traffickers to evade security checks and avoid suspicion by using the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) Travel Certificate as travel document to transport their victims to any of the ECOWAS Member States to evade stringent checks at the airport and lower the level of suspicion.
The Command’s Public Relations Officer Ibiemo Cookey said that the command after noticing a sudden increase in the rate at which young people patronised the ECOWAS travel certificate, did a risk analysis and a checklist of the age group that goes for it, as well as the reasons given for the travel and countries where the holders of the document frequent before it attached additional security measure to the issuance of the document.
She said that It has helped in rescuing two victims by denying them the facility and denying several others without genuine reasons after due diligent interrogation. in one of the cases the trafficker who is at large after the victim was stopped prompted the alert system.
Cookey further said that The Bayelsa Command will not rest on its oars until the syndicates are exposed and only well justified, authentic trips without any link to Trafficking in Persons or Smuggling of Migrants is established through the use of interrogative process and vital intelligence tools to fight the menace.
The Command has therefore called on parents and guardians to desist from releasing their wards and children to people with hidden identities or motives by verifying the kind of work they are to be employed for and report any suspicious movement to take their children outside the country for unconfirmed work with mouth-watering plans.
Controller of Corrections ,Nigeria Correctional Services Francis Enobore called for new legal procedures that would ensure the protection of the future of young offenders.
According to him, the Federal Government must now begin to put in place programs that would help redirect the minds of young children from crime. DAILY TRUST
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