trafficking3

Trafficked from Nigeria for sexual exploitation
Lucky is seventeen years old and comes from a town called Uromi, in Edo State,
Nigeria. Uromi is a small village one and a half hours away from Benin City where
she has lived all her life helping her mother grow cassava and corn to eat and
sell.
Two years ago, when she was fifteen, Lucky was in school one day when a
girlfriend and classmate started asking her if she wanted to go with her to travel
abroad. Such an opportunity was tempting. “We don’t have anything here.”, Lucky
describes, “there is nothing to do in Nigeria and everybody wants to go abroad
where there is lots of work and we can get rich”.
Agreeing to the proposition, dreaming of wealth, Lucky’s friend introduced her to
a ‘sponsor’ who would help her travel. She did not have to pay money
immediately but was told that she could pay him back by working and that she
would owe him many dollars.
The sponsor took her to a native ‘doctor’ who took her name and her collected
some of her head and pubic-hair and told her that if she failed to pay back the
money by working or leaving then she would be harmed. Terrified, Lucky agreed
and without telling her parents, she went with her friend and sponsor, by car to
Lagos from where her travels began.
The two girls believed they were going to Italy, and were driven for days and days
across West Africa into Mali, which was to be the end of the journey. Not even
knowing where she was, Lucky was told that she had a new name, ‘Lovett’ and
was taken to work. She was given short skirts to wear and told to stand in the
road where men could approach her. Her and other girls were living in a hotel run
by a ‘Madam’ from Benin, who also had a gang of young boys working for her to
stop the girls from escaping. If they tried to runaway they were locked up.
Lucky stayed in this hotel for a while. Miserable, she did not know what to do until
one day a policeman arrested her and she was taken to the Nigerian Embassy in
Mali as an illegal worker. She was deported and taken to the next port of call –
the Benin Republic – where contact was made with a Nigerian NGO ‘Idia
Renaissance’, that helps victims of trafficking. Mrs Eki Igbenedion, the founder of
the NGO, travelled to Benin to help Lucky who was repatriated to Nigeria. On her
return to Nigeria, with the power of the State Governor’s wife Mrs Igbenedion,
Lucky was taken back to the voodoo priest and the curse was neutralized. If this
had not happened, Lucky believes that she would never have been safe.
Lucky is back in school but remains embarrassed and ashamed of her
experiences. She says that she has not told anyone about what happened to her
and would never tell her future husband that she had been involved in such
‘business’. Her parents are glad that she is back but she is not going to tell them
what happened to her, fearing stigma and embarrassment.
Trafficking of children for the purpose of domestic service, prostitution and other
forms of exploitative labour is a widespread phenomenon in Nigeria. Nigeria has
become a major player in the selling and buying of children and is one of the
biggest supplying, receiving and transit countries in West Africa. The major
reason for this is widespread poverty, large family size, urban to rural migration,
rapid urbanization and high school drop-out rates. In many instances, desperately
poor parents willingly cooperate with traffickers to give away their children for a
fee. Parents from overburdened rural families often give their children away to
city residents promising a better life. Traffickers exploit the trust of people,
exploiting a deep rooted tradition and practice in which families send away their
children to extended family for fostering.