By Igbotako Nowinta
Benin City.
The Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) has opened its second Resilience Dialogue in Benin City, Edo State, with a renewed call for stronger collaboration among government agencies, civil society organisations and communities in the fight against human trafficking and organised crime.
The two-day dialogue, which commenced on Wednesday, October 7, 2026, at OTI Hotel, Benin City, brought together key stakeholders involved in anti-trafficking and organised crime interventions, including the five local grantees implementing GI-TOC-supported projects in Benin City and Kano.
Representatives of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), community coordinators, project beneficiaries and GI-TOC liaison officers also participated in the high-level engagement.
Opening the dialogue, GI-TOC Nigeria Grant Liaison, Sandra Eguagie, said the meeting was designed to deepen collaboration among stakeholders working at the frontline of efforts to prevent human trafficking and organised crime.
She said the dialogue would also provide an opportunity to assess progress, share experiences and strengthen projects supported through the GI-TOC Resilience Fund.
Giving an overview of the Resilience Fund and its community-driven approach, GI-TOC representative, Jacques Muhindon, said the organisation, headquartered in Switzerland, supports grassroots organisations through funding, capacity building, networking and collaboration.
According to him, the Resilience Fund has so far supported more than 522 projects and facilitated 86 resilience dialogues across countries where its projects are being implemented.
Muhindon identified three critical pillars for building resilience against organised crime: preventing crime before it occurs; developing effective responses when crime occurs to reduce its recurrence; and helping communities withstand, respond to and recover from the devastating consequences of organised crime.
He stressed that although government retains the primary responsibility for preventing and combating crime, communities remain indispensable partners in the process.
He pointed to victim support, livelihood development and humanitarian assistance as critical areas where communities and civil society organisations could complement government interventions and prevent vulnerable people from being pushed back into cycles of exploitation.
The dialogue also examined emerging trends in human trafficking and migrant smuggling, with researcher Precious Diagboye drawing attention to factors shaping contemporary trafficking patterns.
Among the issues highlighted were restrictive visa regimes, inadequate access to reliable migration information, perceptions surrounding migration routes and what she described as campaign fatigue.
The discussions underscored the need for anti-trafficking interventions to evolve alongside the changing methods of traffickers and the increasingly complex circumstances confronting potential migrants.
Muhindon further challenged participants to view resilience not simply as the ability to survive adversity, but as the capacity of individuals and communities to anticipate, withstand, respond to and recover from threats associated with organised crime.
Representing the Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ), Executive Deputy Director, Atakpu Leo, and GI-TOC Project Officer, Tracy Ugwu, participated actively in the dialogue.
Ugwu presented an update on ANEEJ’s project, “Addressing Human Trafficking through Income-Generating Skills,” highlighting achievements recorded during its first phase, which ended in February 2026, and outlining the implementation strategy for Phase II, which commenced in July 2026 and will run until June 2027.
The ANEEJ intervention focuses on vulnerable and trafficked persons, combining psychosocial resilience training with vocational skills and income-generating opportunities.
The objective is to help beneficiaries rebuild their confidence, strengthen their economic independence and develop sustainable livelihoods capable of reducing their vulnerability to trafficking and exploitation.
The intervention reflects a growing recognition that the battle against human trafficking cannot be won solely through arrests, prosecutions and border controls.
For many vulnerable people, the roots of trafficking are deeply connected to poverty, unemployment, misinformation, social vulnerability and the absence of sustainable livelihood opportunities.
Consequently, strengthening the resilience of individuals and communities is increasingly becoming an essential component of long-term crime prevention.
The Benin City dialogue therefore provided more than a platform for reviewing projects. It offered stakeholders an opportunity to interrogate what works, identify emerging threats and forge practical partnerships capable of taking the fight against human trafficking closer to the communities where vulnerability begins.
With participants drawn from government institutions, civil society, grassroots organisations and affected communities, the engagement reinforced the message that organised crime thrives where vulnerabilities persist—and that sustainable prevention requires more than enforcement; it requires resilient people, empowered communities and coordinated institutions.
As the dialogue continues, stakeholders are expected to exchange lessons from their interventions in Benin City and Kano and identify practical strategies for strengthening community resilience, protecting vulnerable populations and disrupting the conditions that enable human trafficking and organised crime to flourish.
The meeting ultimately placed one message at the centre of the conversation: preventing trafficking is not only about stopping criminals; it is also about building communities where vulnerability is harder to exploit and recovery from exploitation is possible.
