Nigeria Immigration Service, Bayelsa State Command, claimed on Thursday that it had uncovered ‘new methods’ used by suspected human traffickers to traffick underage girls.
In a statement by the state Comptroller, Mr Sunday James, the command however cited the ECOWAS Travel Certificate as one of the means adopted by the human traffickers in their illicit business.
James claimed that the perpetrators use the ECOWAS travel document “to evade security checks and avoid suspicion and transport their victims to any of the regional body’s member states.”
He said, “A victim by the name of Miss Maureen Ekpe was stopped and denied facility after a thorough investigation, while the purported trafficker is at large, the victim was released to her family with a warning.”
According to him, the suspected human traffickers also use the same travel paper “to evade stringent checks at the airport and lower the level of suspicion in view of the limitation of countries the document is valid for travel.”
