The chairperson, Edo State Taskforce Against Human Trafficking (ETAHT) and Attorney General and Commissioner of Justice, Prof Yinka Omorogbe, has disclosed that the state government has spent N300 million on reintegration of victims of human trafficking and illegal migration since 2017 till date.
Prof. Omorogbe who disclosed this to journalists in Benin on Monday while refuting the claim that she inflated the cost price of identity cards for the returnees, said 4,946 had so far been received in the last two years of the task force’s existence.
“The state government has spent over N300 million on victims of human trafficking and illegal migration that were returned from Libya by the federal government since the task force started work. This include N20,000 three months stipend to the returnees which has gulped over N100 million.
“We further refer to the deceitful publication that about N7.4 million Identity card project of about 3,000 members of the group was inflated by the task force, it is a gross misrepresentation of facts and a baseless point,” she noted.
She said the task force has not received any cash from international donors and agencies but what it has only gotten was assistance in kind like provision of lunch, venues, training materials among others which have also helped in their fight against human trafficking in the state.
According to her, the claim by some of the returnees that they have not been given any financial assistance was false and should not be taken seriously.
“Every returnees that had come up to a particular time when the state government could not do it again, has been given three months stipend of N60,000. Also, every returnees get money from International office of Migration (IOM), some of them have gotten about N700,000 from IOM but they will never tell people,” he said.
She said the successes recorded so far by the state government under her leadership has corrected the earlier wrong impression held by the international communities on the state adding that she was proud to be part of the success stories.
Prof. Omorogbe explained that the returnees have undergone different trainings and that some of them have been established in their chosen trades, assuring that government will continue in that line till it successfully addressed the problem.
She noted that following the success recorded by the task force in the fight against human trafficking, NAPTIP has advocated similar task force for endemic states, adding that Delta and Ondo states have already keyed in.
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