NAPTIP RESCUES EIGHT STOLEN CHILDREN IN DELTA ORPHANAGE RAID

The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons has rescued eight children believed to have been stolen from Kano and other northern states and trafficked to the south.

The children were recovered during a raid on a popular orphanage in Asaba, Delta State, conducted in collaboration with the Department of State Services, the police, and civil society groups.

NAPTIP spokesperson Vincent Adekoye confirmed the development in a statement on Tuesday, noting that the rescue followed years of complaints by parents whose children had gone missing across Kano and neighbouring states.

The agency said syndicates posing as traders often lured children between the ages of two and ten from their communities and vanished with them. Investigators later traced some of the missing children to the Asaba orphanage, where more than 70 children, including newborns, were found.

According to NAPTIP’s Director General, Binta Bello, only eight were identified as those abducted from Kano and have since been reunited with their families. She expressed concern over the growing number of questionable orphanages in the country and questioned the origins of the many children kept in such facilities.
Bello accused the operator of the Asaba orphanage of evading investigation and spreading falsehoods on social media, adding that the raid was carried out professionally and lawfully.

She urged state ministries of women affairs to step up oversight of orphanages and pledged that NAPTIP would intensify its crackdown on child trafficking networks across the country.

Reported by Bright Okpo