School abductions across Nigeria are deepening children’s vulnerability to human trafficking, the Network Against Child Trafficking, Abuse and Labour (NACTAL) has warned, saying prolonged insecurity-driven school closures are expanding the pool of minors exposed to criminal recruitment.
The warning came on Wednesday in Keffi, Nasarawa State, during a three-day training for civil society organisations on monitoring, evaluation and reporting of human trafficking cases using nationally approved tools.
The programme is supported under the Support to Migration Governance in Nigeria Project (Component III), funded by the European Union and implemented by FIAP.
NACTAL National President, Abdulganiyu Abubakar, said kidnappings targeting schools were not only disrupting education but also creating conditions that traffickers exploit to lure out-of-school children with false promises of opportunity.
‘Some of these abductions affect enrolment, retention and completion of education by children and young people. The abductions also lead to the closure of schools. When schools are closed and children are back home, they are vulnerable and prone to being trafficked by those who do not mean well for society’, he said.
He warned that traffickers often operate within communities and actively target children left without the protection of schools.
‘If children remain at home, they will certainly be recruited and trafficked. People will come and give them false hopes and present juicy offers to them, and they will fall for it’, Abubakar said.
He said advocacy efforts had been sustained since the abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls and subsequent incidents in states including Borno, with civil society groups repeatedly calling for stronger preventive action.
According to him, interventions have included press briefings, community engagements and policy advocacy across several states.
‘In Sokoto State, my organisation brought together stakeholders to deliberate and make concrete calls to government. In the FCT, we held a national press conference to draw the attention of government to the issue. We have also submitted position papers and recommendations urging authorities to take proactive measures’, he said.
Abubakar urged government to prioritise prevention through stronger protection of schools, warning that human trafficking continues to thrive despite increased awareness and interventions.
‘Human trafficking is one of the largest criminal industries in the world. It is a transnational organised crime that is not easy to detect or dismantle because traffickers operate in networks across communities and countries’, he said.
He said women, children and young people remain the most affected, both within Nigeria and across borders, adding that weak community awareness continues to fuel the problem.
‘We still need more community engagement. We need traditional, religious and community leaders to understand the red flags and the tricks traffickers use so that they can provide better protection for children and young people’, he said.
Abubakar also raised concerns over poor documentation of trafficking cases, saying gaps in reporting weaken national response efforts and obscure the scale of the crime.
He added that NACTAL’s review of Nigeria’s latest assessment in the United States Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report showed that several interventions by government and civil society organisations were not adequately captured.
‘Certainly, we are not where we want to be, but we are also not where we used to be. It is important that we report ongoing efforts while also acknowledging existing gaps and areas that require improvement’, he said.
He said the organisation would present recommendations arising from its review to relevant stakeholders.
NACTAL National Secretary, Osita Osemene, said weak technical capacity among some member organisations was contributing to the underreporting of trafficking cases and limiting the effectiveness of interventions.
He said inconsistent documentation of activities had created gaps in the data required for coordinated response efforts and evidence-based interventions.
‘The programme is aimed at building the capacity of the network in monitoring and evaluation and developing a standardised tool for reporting among member organisations. This will improve effectiveness and coordination in terms of data gathering and intervention’, Osemene said.
He warned that weak reporting structures could increase vulnerability among at-risk groups, particularly children.
‘If a network does not have adequate capacity to carry out interventions, there will be gaps and lapses, and those lapses can lead to vulnerability of children, whereby children can be abused or trafficked’, he said.
Osemene said the training had drawn participants from across Nigeria’s geopolitical zones as part of efforts to strengthen coordination among organisations working to combat trafficking.
FIAP Deputy Team Lead, Javier Francesco Leon, said effective anti-trafficking responses depend on accurate documentation, warning that unrecorded interventions risk being excluded from national policy frameworks.
‘An achievement that is not recorded cannot be measured. An impact that is not measured cannot be demonstrated. And a reality that is not demonstrated can be easily forgotten’, he said.
Leon said insecurity, poverty, displacement and irregular migration continue to create opportunities for traffickers and criminal networks across Nigeria.
‘Information is not a luxury. It is a necessity. Good data improves policies, and ultimately, good data helps save lives’, he said.
