Gombe government and parent negotiate the return of trafficked children

According to Daily Trust Saturday, there is a dispute between the Gombe State Government and some parents who believe their children were taken by human traffickers and not returned to them.

The government was accused of failing to recover the parents’ children who had been trafficked to Anambra State by the parents, who were represented by the Amalgamated Association of Parents (AAP).

However, the government has accused the parents of failing to use the proper channels of communication and protocol, which would have allowed it to find the kids and return them to Gombe.

In order to press their demand for the return of the children who were trafficked to Anambra State about six years ago, the parents met at the private residence of Governor Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya because they were dissatisfied with the government’s position.

They claim that between 2017 and 2020, over 20 children were reported missing, but only eight of them were found and reunited with their families.

One of the mothers, Maryam Abubakar Muhammad, a Riyal Quarters resident whose child was trafficked, claimed they were at the governor’s house to ask him for help in getting them reunited with their kids.

She claimed that more than five years ago, the kids were kidnapped and trafficked to Anambra State. “Some of them were discovered in Anambra State, we heard. We came together to ask the governor to assist us in bringing them home because of this.

“Even though the state government helped us bring some of them back about two years ago, we are still requesting another government assistance to get the rest of them back.

“Four children were reunited with their parents in 2020 as a result of government intervention, and some parents sold their homes to cover the costs of the logistics while retrieving four more. So far, eight kids have been rescued from human traffickers in Anambra State.

But 13 kids are still in Anambra State, and we haven’t managed to get them back yet. Additionally, the traffickers who were apprehended by the police have consented to put us in touch with the families whose children they sold.

Maryam added that other attempts to get the government’s attention to assist them with the logistics of locating and bringing their children back to them had failed, so they decided to visit the governor’s residence.

Fatima Abubakar, a different mother from the Arawa neighborhood of the Gombe metropolis, claimed that her then three-year-old son was abducted around five years ago while he was playing with other kids.

She claimed that because their husbands make low wages, they had no choice but to ask the government for help in assisting them in reclaiming their children.

“Our husbands are low-income earners who struggle to feed us; as a result, they cannot afford to pay for the logistics from here to Anambra State in order to bring our children back,” the woman said.

“So, we are here to solicit for the assistance of the governor because we don’t have money to travel to Anambra to bring them home.”

Fatima further stated that, “all the women you are seeing here are mothers of the remaining 13 children that were trafficked and sold in Anambra State. We are appealing to the government to offer its usual assistance.”

On his part, Ibrahim Ardo, Secretary of the Amalgamated Association of Parents who lost children to human traffickers, said his daughter was abducted by a syndicate of traffickers, who stole children and sold them in Anambra State.

“After the state government in September 2020 returned four children to us, some of us sold our properties to go to Anambra State and reclaimed four other children. That a total of eight out of 21 children taken from Gombe and sold in Anambra,” he said.

According to Ardo, he sponsored himself to Anambra and claimed his daughter, but there are 13 other children still living with people who bought them from the traffickers.

“We got information that the children are still in Anambra State. And the traffickers that were arrested by the police gave us addresses and telephone numbers of people that are still holding our children.

“Upon receiving this information, we wrote a letter to the state governor through the state Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development. A director in the ministry was assigned to take our letter to the governor for subsequent action.

“But for months now, we haven’t heard from the government on efforts being made to retrieve the remaining children. Therefore, we are appealing to them, to please help us unite with our children,” Ardo said.

However, the state Commissioner of Women Affairs, Mrs Naomi JJ Awak, stated that the parents are yet to follow the appropriate channel that would allow the government to intervene and bring back the children.

According to her, the ministry is yet to get official communication from the police, “which is the proper channel of communication before the government could take any further action.

“The state government is always ready to assist and bring these children back and unite them with their parents. But we need a police report before we can swing into action to retrieve these children.

“It was the same procedure that was followed in 2020, and the governor gave his approval to the ministry, and we provided the police with all the logistics to Anambra State and brought the children back.

“However, the ministry can assure the parents that we are always ready to retrieve such children whenever they are located. As such, the parents should bring evidence to the police about the location of their children, and we will go there and retrieve them,” she said.

Mrs Awak added that the ministry under her supervision is unrelenting in its mandate of protecting rights and provision of welfare to women, children and other vulnerable members of the society.

Daily Trust reports that in September 2020, the Gombe State Police Command had in collaboration with the Anambra State Police Command, busted the kidnapper’s den in an “orphanage” in Onitsha, Anambra State, where they rescued 12 children.

During the raid, seven boys and five girls below the ages of 10 were rescued, while one Nkechi Odulye, the “proprietor” of the orphanage, alongside one Ali Bala Shaukani from Taraba State, the “supplier” of the children, were arrested by the police.

The police said it launched the raid following information scooped from one Hauwa Usman from Gombe and one Faith Okpai from Anambra who were in detention at the Gombe prison following their arrest in November 2019, in connection with two children abducted from Gombe and sold in Anambra.

Hauwa and Faith operated from Gombe where they stole children mostly below two years and transported them to Onitsha from where they handed them over to Shaukani who later sold them to Nkechi.

The police said they gathered that male children were sold for N300,000 each, while female children went for N250,000 each, and that the children were subsequently resold between N750,000 and N800,000 to prospective buyers; mostly from the South South and the South East.

Daily Trust Saturday learnt that investigation led the police to Nkechi and Shaukani who were the masterminds and partners of Hauwa and Faith in the human trafficking business.

(Daily Trust)