The Director General of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), Hajiya Binta Bello, has raised alarm over the evolving and increasingly complex nature of human trafficking in Nigeria, including disturbing trends such as organ harvesting, sextortion, and deceptive job offers.
Speaking at a press briefing to mark the 2025 World Day Against Human Trafficking, Bello disclosed that traffickers are adopting new tactics to lure and exploit victims, particularly women, children, and vulnerable populations. She highlighted the rise in fake job opportunities and scholarship scams abroad, recruitment of victims for online fraud (popularly known as “Yahoo Yahoo”) in West Africa, and coercive online loan schemes that trap victims into prostitution.
“Human trafficking has become more transnational, organized, and linked to other forms of exploitation,” Bello stated. “We are witnessing an alarming increase in cyber-enabled trafficking, baby factories, organ harvesting, and revenge pornography.”
Despite these growing challenges, she reaffirmed NAPTIP’s commitment to its five-pronged strategy—Prevention, Protection, Partnership, Policy, and Prosecution—through nationwide awareness campaigns, policy development, victim rehabilitation, and offender prosecution.
Bello also revealed the agency’s enhanced collaboration with other law enforcement bodies and the intelligence community, as well as the upgrading of NAPTIP’s Cybercrime Squad, now aligned with the Joint Case Team on Cybercrime under the Federal Ministry of Justice, to counter online recruitment and exploitation.
“NAPTIP will continue to intensify efforts to detect, intercept, and dismantle trafficking networks. Traffickers will find it increasingly difficult to operate in the country,” she asserted.
She called on all stakeholders to set aside rivalries and unite in safeguarding the nation’s most vulnerable, noting: “Human trafficking is a serious threat to national development.”
Also speaking at the event, Mr. Cheikh Toure, Country Representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), expressed the UN’s strong support for Nigeria’s anti-trafficking efforts.
Toure described human trafficking as “a calculated, transnational enterprise” that undermines human dignity and the rule of law. He reaffirmed UNODC’s readiness to deepen partnerships with Nigerian authorities, civil society, and survivors to dismantle trafficking networks and protect victims.
“The time for decisive and coordinated action is now,” he emphasized.
