By Ikhili Ebalu, Benin City


The Edo State Command of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons and other related matters  Wednesday disclosed that it had secured a court conviction for a human trafficker, Vivian Francis, who lured three of her siblings from Cross River State to Benin for prostitution.   

Zonal Commander of NAPTIP, Mrs Ijeoma Uduak, said the convict lured the victims aged 15, 17, 18 to Benin on the pretense that she was going to secure a job for them.

Uduak said the convict was nabbed at a popular hotel in Benin during the thick of the COVID-19 lockdown, adding that she confessed to the crime, punishable under section 13 of the NAPTIP Act. 

She said the convict was arraigned before Justice Isoken Erameh, of the state High Court (3), Criminal Division, where she pleaded guilty and was sentenced to one-year imprisonment or an option of N125, 000 fine as a first time offender.

Uduak said, “We clamped down on the suspect during the COVID-19 lockdown in a popular hotel in Benin. She confessed going to Cross River State to bring the three girls, who were aged 15, 17, and 18. She told them that she had secured a bar attendant jobs for them, but when they got here she started using them for prostitution and collecting the proceeds.

“She was arrested and charged to the court in violation of Section 13 of the NAPTIP Act. She pleaded guilty and was convicted and sentenced to one-year imprisonment with an option of N125, 000 fine.”

She noted that the victims had been reunited with their family in Cross River State.

In an interview with journalists, the 28-year-old Vivian, who is from Obubra Local Government Area of Cross River State, said she made a mistake by luring her siblings to Benin for prostitution.

“I have made a mistake by bringing my sisters to Benin, I did not know it was going to end up this way. I just felt they should keep themselves busy in Benin that was why I fixed them in that line. 

“When they came to Benin, they realised that I was into prostitution that was why I told them to do the same. I pray that others should not make the kind of mistake I made,” she said