The Enugu state Police Command has paraded two suspected child traffickers who specialised in trafficking children from Plateau to Rivers state.
The suspects were arrested by men of the Army’s 82 division while transporting eleven children from Barki-Ladi to a motherless babies home in Rumu-Elele, Port Harcourt.
The Commissioner of Police, Ahmed Abdurrahman attributed the success to synergy among security agencies in the state.
He alleged that the suspects had trafficked several children, delivered to the same proprietor of a Child care home, whom he said is already being investigated. But the suspects sharply rejected the label of trafficking and insisting they acted with the full consent of the parents.
However, the story takes yet another bizzare twist as the parents at first feign ignorance of why their children were taken from them, but then stated that they had been told of a home in Port Harcourt for less privileged children.
Cases of child labour and trafficking from Plateau state have been on the rise. In many cases, displacement caused by communal fighting and loss of parents have been identified as push factors.
