In the last three to five years, Plateau State has gradually become the epicenter of child trafficking in the country.
The development has heightened concern within the government circle, child rights advocates, religious bodies, concerned parents and guardians, and the larger society.
Available records show that in the last few years, more than one thousand vulnerable children have been intercepted and rescued by security agencies as they were being trafficked to other parts of the country and even neighbouring countries like Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Mali, Togo, and Benin Republic, for the sole purpose of cheap child labour and sex slavery.
A worrying pattern has revealed that over 85% of these trafficked children have come from the Langtang axis (Langtang North/South LGAs). No one has been able to explain this phenomenal preference for children from that axis.
Some rescued children are as young as 2 years old.
Last year, after a set of kids were rescued in an Abuja suburb as they were being surreptitiously trafficked to Lagos, a local government chairman, where most of the kids came from, cried out that Plateau State has now become the number one spot for child and human trafficking.
“Is Plateau State now the home of child trafficking and why? Almost all the incidences of child trafficking are domiciled on the Plateau,” the council chairman had lamented.
Security agencies have discovered that there are powerful syndicates behind the depraved act, including those who pose as religious leaders, concerned NGO, education providers and even close relatives who go to rural communities that are ravaged with poverty, locate these minors and with the exchange of a few naira notes, convince their parents to release them for a better future, only to deploy them for menial jobs such as house girls or house boys, labourers, and in some cases prostitution, in other parts of the country.
It has also been reported that some of the victims have been killed and their organs harvested by the traffickers.
The syndicates often capitalize on the parents’ gullibility and financial difficulty to persuade them to release their children with the promise of a better life with paid jobs in cities around the country, especially in state capitals like Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt, and other major cities.
The agents often pretend to be clergymen acting on instructions from God and using that as a ruse to persuade parents to release their children.
Last year, a prominent clergyman in Jos, who had been involved in the act of child trafficking for several years, was apprehended by the police with over 15 children he had ‘sourced’ and was all set to transport them out of the state at the time he was arrested.
During investigations, it was discovered that the ‘respected’ clergyman who is the founder of a popular prayer ministry in Jos South Local Government Area, was behind a major child-trafficking syndicate in the state and had syndicates and recruiters in almost all the local areas, especially those ravaged by communal violence and abject poverty.
When another set of underage children was intercepted and rescued by the Plateau State Task Force on Child Trafficking in an unmarked vehicle heading to Lagos State, the state Commissioner for Women Affairs, Mrs Caroline Panglang Dafur, had practically broken down in tears, lamenting that the traffickers were deliberately targeting young children from Plateau State and Langtang in particular.
Another concerned stakeholder, Apostle Jack Mamven Light, founder of the Itarok Development Foundation, an organization which has now become a frontline voice against child trafficking, also expressed his concerns over the prevalence of the perilous act, especially involving the Tarok-speaking people of Langtang.
Apostle Light, who spoke to DAILY POST on the child trafficking menace in the state, revealed that since he set up the foundation two years ago, the IDF had successfully rescued and repatriated over 100 Tarok victims of child trafficking, carried out school outreaches in Langtang North and South to sensitize pupils and students against child trafficking, and secured partnerships with reputable agencies, including NAPTIP, Nigeria Immigration Service, NACTAL, Nigeria Police Force, Plateau State Gender & Equal Opportunity Commission, Plateau State Ministry of Women Affairs, and the Nigeria Security & Civil Defence Corps.
While speaking on the menace, he threw more light on his findings since he began his advocacy against child trafficking, especially as it affects the Tarok ethnic group where he belongs.
“The first thing we have noticed since we began this fight against child trafficking is that most of the traffickers end up harvesting the organs of these vulnerable children.
“They will go to the rural communities and promise the parents that they will take good care of the children by sending them to school and taking care of them.
“But most times, these children are killed and their organs are harvested. We have had so many such cases.
“Then we have that of child labour where these children are taken to different states and are put in plantations where they are turned into modern-day slaves, especially in cocoa farms in the Southwest.
“We have been able to repatriate many of these children and the majority of them are from Langtang North and South LGAs of Plateau State.
“We have had to travel to Kwara, Ogun, Oyo, Lagos, Delta, Rivers, Edo, and even Cross River States to repatriate these children.
“Especially in the southwest, we found out that children as young as 7 years are dumped in cocoa plantations, rubber plantations, and oil palm plantations where they are forced to work from morning till night with little or no food.
“Some are so malnourished that by the time they are rescued, you would wonder the mindset of these traffickers,” Apostle Light lamented.
Also speaking on the main causes of child trafficking, a child rights activist in the state, Grace Jonah identified a combination of causes, including poverty, insecurity, and socio-cultural factors that often make these children vulnerable to exploitation.
“The traffickers exploit these vulnerabilities, operating as organized cartels that sometimes disguise their activities behind religious, educational, or humanitarian missions,” she said.
“Endemic poverty and economic hardship on the part of parents and guardians of these children are major drivers and fuel for the unholy act of child trafficking.
“Due to poverty, most parents succumb to the temptation of giving out their children to strangers who promise them a better life.
“Another major cause of child trafficking is the lingering insecurity and displacement of the people in rural communities.
“Due to the incessant conflicts, intercommunal clashes, Fulani militia invasions, farmer-herder crises, and banditry in the state which have led to a significant displacement of the people, women and children who make up a large percentage of these displaced persons have become vulnerable and the traffickers often mark them as their potential targets, increasing their chances of being hoodwinked into being given a chance for a new life outside their enclave.
“Another worrisome aspect that we have noticed over time is parental neglect. Some parents are so irresponsible that they do not care about the well-being of the children they give birth to.
“Some parents are so irresponsible that they even go out of their way to beg the traffickers to take their children whom they see as a burden to them,” she stated.
