In the Adaka neighbourhood of Makurdi town in Benue State, agents of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) on Wednesday freed a 12-year-old girl who had apparently been coerced into marrying a 50-year-old man by her family.
After Ukan Kurugh, a human rights advocate with a base in Makurdi, alerted the NAPTIP to the Good Samaritan’s report, the girl was saved.
Kurugh, who posted a confirmation of the news on his page, claimed that a relative of the girl named Lucky Iduh alerted him to the situation.
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He said that the girl’s family tricked her into becoming the farmer’s third wife.
He said: “But when she discovered that she was brought to the man’s house as his third wife, the girl raised the alarm and tried to escape from the house.
“That was what attracted the neighbours’ attention to the girl’s plight.”
A preliminary investigation, according to Mrs. Gloria Bai, the NAPTIP Zonal Commander in Benue State, who corroborated the event, showed that the girl had been in the forced marriage for almost three months while the male was abusing her.
She claimed that after agency operatives entered the man’s home to rescue the daughter, they had increased their attempts to bring him back.
“Yes we have rescued her. We got this report from a concerned citizen and contrary to the media report that NAPTIP was ‘slow and unenthusiastic,’ we swiftly went into action to search for the address where the girl was and when we got the address, we planned to go first thing in the morning so that we get both the man and the victim and by 6:00 a.m., we were there,” she said.
