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The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) is to commence aerial border patrol with Niger, a measure to curb the activities of child traffickers who used such borders as a safe haven, the official News Agency of Nigeria reported Friday.
LAGOS, 01/02 - The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) is to commence aerial border patrol with Niger, a measure to curb the activities of child traffickers who used such borders as a safe haven, the official News Agency of Nigeria reported Friday.
Alhaji Hassan Ali, controller of the NIS Sokoto State Command in northwest Nigeria, was quoted as saying his command would from 2005 be provided with aircraft to ensure a hitch-free take-off of the aerial border patrol.
He said his Command arrested 115 child traffickers along the border in 2004, adding that all the suspects had been transferred to Abuja for further investigation and possible prosecution.
"The stop-and-search operation introduced along the borders is obviously yielding results," he said.
According to a report issued by the United Nations International Children`s Emergency Fund, the average age of trafficked children, especially girls, is 15 years.
A United Nations Children`s Fund report shows that some 8 million out of Nigeria`s 64 million children are engaged in exploitative labor overseas, with 43 percent of them smuggled from the Southern border towns of Calabar and Port Harcourt.