World Day Against Trafficking in Persons – July 30, 2025

PRESS STATEMENT

Theme: Human Trafficking is Organized Crime – End the Exploitation

As the world marks the 2025 World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, Girls’ Power Initiative (GPI) joins global and national stakeholders in reaffirming our commitment to ending all forms of trafficking, especially the exploitation of girls and young women in Nigeria.

This year’s theme, “Human Trafficking is Organized Crime – End the Exploitation,” highlights the systematic and highly coordinated networks behind trafficking operations. These criminal structures prey on the vulnerabilities of girls and young women—offering false promises of education, jobs, and a better life—only to lure them into cycles of abuse, servitude, and loss of dignity.

For over three decades, GPI has worked at the frontline of prevention, education, empowerment, and advocacy to protect girls and reduce their vulnerability to trafficking and exploitation. Through our life skills and comprehensive sexuality education programs, thousands of girls have gained critical knowledge to recognize and resist deceptive tactics used by traffickers.

In recent years, GPI has deepened its interventions through targeted community projects. In 2025 alone, we empowered over 180 out-of-school adolescent girls and young women across Edo State with vocational and business training, linking them to mentorship and starter grants. This effort not only builds economic resilience but also disrupts the very conditions that traffickers exploit—poverty, lack of opportunity, and misinformation.

We have also launched Community Anti-Child Trafficking Watch Groups across local government areas in Edo and Delta States. These groups bring together religious leaders, transport workers, teachers, youth leaders, and security agencies to act as first responders—monitoring, reporting, and responding to trafficking risks in real-time. Our work complements the efforts of the Edo Migration Agency, the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), and other stakeholders.

Furthermore, GPI continues to push for policy reform and education curriculum integration to ensure that young people are adequately informed about migration, trafficking, and human rights. We also engage digital platforms to raise awareness, counter misinformation, and reach broader audiences with anti-trafficking messaging.

As we observe this day, GPI calls for:

• Stronger collaboration among government agencies, civil society, and local actors to dismantle trafficking networks and ensure justice for survivors.
• Increased investment in education and economic empowerment programs that build resilience in vulnerable communities.
• Enhanced use of technology and community surveillance to track, report, and disrupt organized trafficking routes.
• Support for survivors, including trauma-informed care, legal aid, and long-term reintegration support.

Human trafficking is not accidental, it is deliberate, strategic, and organized. Ending it requires the same level of coordinated resistance and political will. At GPI, we believe that every girl has the right to grow, dream, and thrive, free from fear, abuse, or exploitation.

Together, let us end the exploitation.

Signed:

May Ikoghode Ekido

Co-ordinator

Girls’ Power Initiative (GPI), Edo State Center

0703 058 6450

www.gpinigeria.org

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