The Pathfinder Justice Initiative (PJI), a Non-Governmental Organisation, has called for proper trauma care for migrant returnees to prevent them from becoming vulnerable to subsequent trafficking.
Evon Benson-Idahosa, the Executive Director, PJI, made the call at Rehabilitation Workshop for Providers Serving Survivors of Human Trafficking held in Benin on Thursday.
The workshop was organised by PJI and funded by INSighT- Building Capacity to Deal with Human Trafficking and Transit Routes to Nigeria, Italy and Sweden.
Benson-Idahosa said that a majority of returnee migrants usually undergo different traumatic situations and needed to be properly rehabilitated before being integrated back into the society.
She noted that if the migrant returnees were not properly rehabilitated, they would not be able to put into good use any form of skills acquisition or empowerment received.
“Providers serving survivors should know how to handle traumatised victims because many of them, especially females, have been raped and have gone through horrible experiences during their trafficking journey.
“The providers should know that there are best practices in terms of handling trafficked victims; they need to use a survivor centred approach to prioritise the needs of the victims.
“We don’t want survivors to go back to the same situation that made them vulnerable to trafficking in the first place.’’
She called on government at all levels to partner more with NGOs on providing best traumatic care for returned migrants in the country.
Earlier, Miss Blessing Favour, a trafficked survivor at the workshop said that travelling to Europe through the Libya route was traumatic and returnees needed to be properly rehabilitated.
Favour said that NGOs providing services for returnees could do better by prioritising welfare of their victims before providing empowerment packages.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that participants at the workshop were taught identification and protection of trafficked victims, mental health and psychosocial support for survivors and the impact of trauma on survivors. (NAN)
