Plateau nabs 14, bust 10-year-old child labour syndicate

The Plateau State Government has arrested 14 persons, including three suspected traffickers, and rescued 11 victims in a major operation targeting an illegal motor park allegedly used for trafficking children and women to mining camps in Ibadan.

The Special Adviser to Governor Caleb Mutfwang on Gender and Chairperson of the Plateau State Gender and Equal Opportunities Commission, Olivia Dazyam, disclosed this on Friday while briefing journalists at the Commission’s headquarters in Jos.

She said the Commission acted on a tip-off from a Zawan community member in Jos South Local Government Area about an illegal park operating only on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

“Gentlemen of the press, we decided to call you this afternoon because of a challenging situation that we came across. A member of the Zawan community drew our attention to what, according to him, looked like an illegal motor park. He wanted to find out if we knew about the existence of that park, and he gave me the information that the park operates only on Thursdays and Tuesdays. Thursdays, they would convey passengers to a location in Ibadan… Tuesday, they will now bring back some people into that park and drop them there”, Dazyam said.

She added that she and her team visited the site and found five vehicles loading passengers for what appeared to be a night journey.

“I quickly wanted to find out about the legitimacy of that park. In the first instance, of course, it didn’t look like a park to start with, only a park to the extent that there were vehicles there and there were persons who looked like passengers. I didn’t like the sight of some of the people that I saw there. Some looked like miners, and I also saw young ladies there who were also about to travel”, she said.

After confirming with the Commissioner for Transport and the Nigerian Union of Road Transport Workers that the park was illegal, security operatives were alerted.

She noted further saying, “The attention of the security was quickly drawn to it, and as I speak now, the police are investigating. I felt that when we have things like this on our hands, we shouldn’t keep quiet. It would appear that, probably, as a result of the silence that we have kept about a lot of negative things happening to us, it has encouraged, in one way or another, the continuity of the abuses against us.”

She expressed shock that the park had existed for nearly a decade. “I’m told that this is a park that has been operating for up to almost 10 years at Zawan Junction… I still have these expectations that our people should be watchful enough and say something when they see something happening that is not right”, she said.

Preliminary police findings and Commission interviews with those arrested revealed that eight of the rescued victims are minors, while two are pregnant women and one is nursing a baby.

She added, “We have discovered that some of them are young children, persons below 18 years who are about to travel, where we are told that there is a mining pond… these people are being recruited to go and serve as labourers in those mining camps.”

Dazyam said the operation fits the pattern of child labour, child exploitation, and human trafficking.

“We also discovered that it’s a journey that some people organise, and they are the ones in charge of the transportation. All of them were to be transported; they are not the ones to pay the transport fare. It is when they arrive, probably after they are delivered in Ibadan in the mining communities, that they pay them”, she said.

She described the conditions as exploitative. “I’m told that they work six days for some other people; one day is only their own… How are you working six days of your life for some people, then only one day is for you? It means that even if you remain in Plateau State, you can actually work for the seven days for yourself, and you will gain something.

“What I understand from what the informant told me is that there is a chain of beneficiaries from this… they have to share the money from their labour with other beneficiaries, and this is why it is exploitative”, she said.

Dazyam questioned why children were being pulled from school for mining labour, saying “Why is it that our children are not going to school, but they are going to serve as labourers at mining ponds… some of the persons that we have interacted with have parents, they have families… they’re supposed to be in school. That’s the simple statement that we need to emphasise there. They need to be in school.”

She lamented the situation, “I learned that there is a huge Plateau community in that Ibadan community… with young children, under no form of protection. The children are with us. We are grappling with how to help them become strong members of the community. Who is going to help you take care of them there? Even our young girls… I’m told everyone is married there, ‘My husband is there, my husband is there. This is the challenge for me… we are losing our future by the day.”

The Special Adviser called for vigilance and parental responsibility. “I want to use this opportunity to call on the people of Plateau State yet again. I think that there is a need for us to fear God and deploy our senses to parental responsibility… A parent of one of the rescued victims got here and said he doesn’t know that two of his children are travelling. He doesn’t know, so what do you know about your children?”

“Gentlemen of the press, help us. Let our people in the state know these are challenges. The first thing is that honestly, like our slogan: see something, say something, do something, and the matters will be sorted out”, she said.

She said the current chairman of the Nigerian Union of Road Transport Workers confirmed that legal parks do not allow transporters to travel with minors.

“That’s why they don’t go there in our parks. They won’t allow you… because they know they carry minors. They will stay somewhere under one big tree in a corner; that’s the location in Zawan. His Excellency has mandated us that if something happens, let the Plateau people know… parents, we ought to be on duty. We ought to be watchful”

Dazyam appealed to community leaders and the media to help expose illegal parks. “If you see any illegal park, just branch there and suspect that you’re likely to see a minor about to be put on a bus, raise questions, ask questions… It’s better for us to be here together, and I believe that God will help all of us in Plateau State.”

She thanked the whistleblower from Zawan. “I want to thank the person or the community member who drew our attention to this park, otherwise we probably wouldn’t have gotten to know… As a government, I believe that His Excellency will take other actions on this to ensure that our people out there are not being exploited to the extent of losing Plateau’s future.”

One of the three suspected traffickers, Emmanuel Dauda, in an interview with journalists, said he was involved in the mining business to enable him to earn a living.

Asked why he did not engage in mining activities within the state, which is known for mining, Dauda said, “I do not know or have anyone to engage me.”

Our correspondent reports that the Gender Commission last week stepped up enlightenment campaigns against human trafficking in Plateau State, with officials of the commission seen in buses sensitising citizens against the menace.