The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has recorded significant successes in dismantling drug trafficking networks that recruit and exploit women for illicit drug operations across the country.
Director of media and advocacy, NDLEA, Mr Femi Babafemi, the made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
Babafemi said the agency had consistently targeted not only drug couriers and traffickers but also the masterminds behind criminal networks that prey on women and other vulnerable groups.
According to him, the agency’s strategy goes beyond arresting individuals caught transporting illicit substances to tracing and apprehending those coordinating the operations.
“We don’t just stop at the level of the traffickers or the mules. We follow the chain to the top of the ladder to ensure that the big masterminds hiding behind various fronts to recruit women and vulnerable groups into these activities are brought to book. We have been very successful in doing that,” he said.
Babafemi noted that several investigations involving women recruited into drug trafficking had led to the arrest and prosecution of those behind the syndicates.
He, however, identified cultural and religious barriers as some of the challenges confronting the agency’s efforts to prevent women from being drawn into drug-related crimes.
According to him, such barriers sometimes limit direct access to certain groups of women during advocacy and sensitisation campaigns.
