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Inside Edo
Rescue of trafficked teens exposes Edo Govt's pathetic failure on human trafficking
Written By: Abdullahi Izuagbe
12 Sep 2025 05:43 AM
Benin, Edo – In yet another damning indictment of the Edo State government's utter incompetence and indifference, the Edo State Migration Agency (ESMA) has intercepted two vulnerable teenage girls, aged 13 and 14, who were brazenly being trafficked to Libya by a ruthless human trafficking syndicate.
This harrowing incident lays bare the government's shameful inability to stem the tide of child exploitation that has plagued the state for years, turning Edo into a notorious hotspot for modern-day slavery.
The girls, one of whom is a fragile sickle cell sufferer whose health could have been catastrophically endangered by the grueling desert crossing, were lured with false promises of domestic work for an elderly couple in Italy.
According to ESMA Director General Lucky Agazumah, the minors departed Edo State on Sunday, September 7, and had already reached Zaria in Kaduna State by mid-week when their trafficker, spooked by the arrest of his mother, Comfort Etim, ordered them to turn back.
They were finally rescued and returned to Benin City on Wednesday night, September 10, after a parent reported the suspicious disappearance to authorities.
One of the victims, identified only as Success, recounted the chilling deception in a voice trembling with relief and betrayal: "The boy told me his sister is in Italy and that she and her husband were old. He said they don’t have any children. He told me not to tell my mother. He said we should call our parents when we get abroad."
The second girl, battling sickle cell disease, naively hoped to "surprise" her mother with tales of foreign adventure, oblivious to the horrors awaiting her—forced labor, sexual exploitation, or worse, in the unforgiving Libyan trafficking networks.
Agazumah, in a press briefing that reeked of damage control, paraded the suspects, including 49-year-old Comfort Etim, who shockingly admitted that her daughter—at large—had already trafficked six other minors to Libya in previous operations.
Etim feebly claimed innocence, insisting the girls were presented as "sisters" by the boy involved, but her confession only underscores the deep-rooted networks operating with impunity under the noses of state officials.
The agency has vowed to sanction transport companies implicated through receipts recovered from the girls, but this is mere window dressing. How many more buses, vans, and routes have ferried Edo's children into oblivion while the government twiddles its thumbs?
This is not an isolated tragedy; it's a symptom of the Edo State government's gross negligence. Despite billions of naira poured into education and youth empowerment programs—rhetoric that rings hollow amid these scandals—the state government has failed spectacularly to dismantle trafficking syndicates that prey on impoverished families.
Agazumah himself highlighted the irony: "The state government is spending billions to ensure Edo children have access to quality education," yet here we have a 14-year-old sickle cell patient, whose survival in the Sahara would be a miracle, being shuttled like cargo toward certain doom.
Where are the robust border controls, community surveillance programs, or intelligence networks that could prevent such abductions before they leave the state?
The government's response? A toothless warning to traffickers: "If you’re a trafficker, be warned that we are very close to you. It is in your interest to leave Edo State."
This limp threat is laughable when syndicates like this one, with repeat offenders shipping off children as if it's a family business, continue to thrive.
Meanwhile, in a related case paraded at the same briefing, an 18-year-old girl, Joseph Faith from Owan West, was deceived with a fake salesgirl job in Lagos only to end up trafficked to Mali, where she endured unimaginable hardships before rescue.
How many more Faiths, Successes, and nameless victims must suffer before the Edo government wakes up to its constitutional duty to protect its citizens, especially the most vulnerable?
Edo State's trafficking crisis is a national embarrassment, fueled by poverty, unemployment, and a complicit underbelly that the government has neither the will nor the wisdom to eradicate. The interception by ESMA is commendable but too little, too late— a band-aid on a gaping wound inflicted by years of policy failures and misplaced priorities.
Governor Monday Okpebholo and his team must be held accountable: Why have anti-trafficking laws not been enforced with vigor? Why are transport firms, obvious enablers, not under constant scrutiny? And why does Edo remain an exporter of child slaves while the administration boasts of development?
The people of Edo deserve better than reactive rescues and empty promises. It is high time for a complete overhaul of the state's security and social welfare apparatus, or this vicious cycle of exploitation will claim countless more young lives.
Until then, the blood of these innocents stains the hands of those in power.
This harrowing incident lays bare the government's shameful inability to stem the tide of child exploitation that has plagued the state for years, turning Edo into a notorious hotspot for modern-day slavery.
The girls, one of whom is a fragile sickle cell sufferer whose health could have been catastrophically endangered by the grueling desert crossing, were lured with false promises of domestic work for an elderly couple in Italy.
According to ESMA Director General Lucky Agazumah, the minors departed Edo State on Sunday, September 7, and had already reached Zaria in Kaduna State by mid-week when their trafficker, spooked by the arrest of his mother, Comfort Etim, ordered them to turn back.
They were finally rescued and returned to Benin City on Wednesday night, September 10, after a parent reported the suspicious disappearance to authorities.
One of the victims, identified only as Success, recounted the chilling deception in a voice trembling with relief and betrayal: "The boy told me his sister is in Italy and that she and her husband were old. He said they don’t have any children. He told me not to tell my mother. He said we should call our parents when we get abroad."
The second girl, battling sickle cell disease, naively hoped to "surprise" her mother with tales of foreign adventure, oblivious to the horrors awaiting her—forced labor, sexual exploitation, or worse, in the unforgiving Libyan trafficking networks.
Agazumah, in a press briefing that reeked of damage control, paraded the suspects, including 49-year-old Comfort Etim, who shockingly admitted that her daughter—at large—had already trafficked six other minors to Libya in previous operations.
Etim feebly claimed innocence, insisting the girls were presented as "sisters" by the boy involved, but her confession only underscores the deep-rooted networks operating with impunity under the noses of state officials.
The agency has vowed to sanction transport companies implicated through receipts recovered from the girls, but this is mere window dressing. How many more buses, vans, and routes have ferried Edo's children into oblivion while the government twiddles its thumbs?
This is not an isolated tragedy; it's a symptom of the Edo State government's gross negligence. Despite billions of naira poured into education and youth empowerment programs—rhetoric that rings hollow amid these scandals—the state government has failed spectacularly to dismantle trafficking syndicates that prey on impoverished families.
Agazumah himself highlighted the irony: "The state government is spending billions to ensure Edo children have access to quality education," yet here we have a 14-year-old sickle cell patient, whose survival in the Sahara would be a miracle, being shuttled like cargo toward certain doom.
Where are the robust border controls, community surveillance programs, or intelligence networks that could prevent such abductions before they leave the state?
The government's response? A toothless warning to traffickers: "If you’re a trafficker, be warned that we are very close to you. It is in your interest to leave Edo State."
This limp threat is laughable when syndicates like this one, with repeat offenders shipping off children as if it's a family business, continue to thrive.
Meanwhile, in a related case paraded at the same briefing, an 18-year-old girl, Joseph Faith from Owan West, was deceived with a fake salesgirl job in Lagos only to end up trafficked to Mali, where she endured unimaginable hardships before rescue.
How many more Faiths, Successes, and nameless victims must suffer before the Edo government wakes up to its constitutional duty to protect its citizens, especially the most vulnerable?
Edo State's trafficking crisis is a national embarrassment, fueled by poverty, unemployment, and a complicit underbelly that the government has neither the will nor the wisdom to eradicate. The interception by ESMA is commendable but too little, too late— a band-aid on a gaping wound inflicted by years of policy failures and misplaced priorities.
Governor Monday Okpebholo and his team must be held accountable: Why have anti-trafficking laws not been enforced with vigor? Why are transport firms, obvious enablers, not under constant scrutiny? And why does Edo remain an exporter of child slaves while the administration boasts of development?
The people of Edo deserve better than reactive rescues and empty promises. It is high time for a complete overhaul of the state's security and social welfare apparatus, or this vicious cycle of exploitation will claim countless more young lives.
Until then, the blood of these innocents stains the hands of those in power.
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