Observation, listening to conversations, physical appearance, and body language are some of the techniques for identifying a victim in the trafficking of persons.
While addressing the media on the state of security in the country, Deputy National Co-ordinator for Prevention of Trafficking of Persons from the Ministry of Internal Affairs Derick Basalirwa Kigenyi revealed that with observation, a person can easily identify patterns and conduct of people, which creates intuition to detect some wrong.
According to Kigenyi, listening to conversations is imperative when it comes to identifying victims of trafficking. He cited the incident of Shakirah Naigaga, who was trafficked last week from Kamuli to Jinja where police intervened to halt the process.
He added that Naigaga’s savior was the Mayor of Namwendwa, who alerted the police in Jinja after listening to the conversations in the tax where the perpetrators and the victim sat.
“In this very situation, in one of the cases we talked about last week of Shakirah Naigaga from Kamuli, it was a tip off from the mayor of Namwenda who was in a taxi going to Jinja with the perpetrator. But because the calls Naigaga made, raised suspicion, the mayor contacted the police in Jinja to save the victim”, He said.
In his speech, Kigenyi also cited physical appearance and body language, stating that in most cases, victims of trafficking look disturbed, and in the case of children, they may look malnourished.
“When you look at the physical appearance of the person, you are able to identify something. So don’t be salient about it. Talk about it anywhere to save our people from the vice”, He advised.
He appealed to the public that in case they identify such situations, they should report them to the security agencies to take action, stating that body language is also common and is a means of communication in human beings.
He added that awkward activities that mainly occur at night may be platforms for human trafficking and appealed to the public to pay attention to the mentioned tips to be able halt the vice of human trafficking.
