In a bid to get a lucrative job and make life meaningful for her
family, a self-confessed senior prostitute who later turned into a human
trafficker, Udoka Enohuean (not real names) has confessed how she
ventured into the illicit act.
The native of Esan, Edo State, later ran into trouble as she
became a prostitute in Burkina Faso as the job did not give her the
money she had long craved for.
She told her story to Sunday Vanguard during the Lord’s Chosen
Charismatic Church yearly programme, tagged, "Mgbidi 2015?." Udoka
said:
"I was 18 years old when a business woman in our community took
some ladies and I to Burkina Faso. The initial deal was that she will
take us to Senegal and then to Europe. But, surprisingly, she took us
to Burkina Faso and she was nowhere to be found the following morning we
arrived there. Unknown to us, she had sold us to a man."
"Immediately, our heads, armpit, private parts were shaved and
the hair used to initiate us into some cult. So horrifying, some of the
girls went mad during the initiation. You could be asked to visit a
burial ground late in the night for the ritual or sleep with a dead
body. Later, we lived in a hotel where we operated as prostitutes and
what we earned used to pay this man every day. Everything turned
gloomy for me. I found myself in thick darkness of prostitution that I
could not deliver myself from. It was a horrible situation.
"We had a booklet each where we recorded our returns everyday
and once the money for which we were sold to the man was paid, which
could be paid within five to nine months, freedom will be organised
for such a person.
"My boss took us to a native doctor who gave us some charm to
protect us from being arrested by law enforcement agents, With the aid
of the charm, we could manipulate men to give us more cash after sex.
"Within months, I completed my payment but I was tired of such
a life and I told my boss I wanted to go back home. But she refused.
So I ran to the community leader for help. I also went to the Nigerian
embassy in Burkinan Faso but no one listened to me. Rather, the
government officials of that country arrested me and took me to Abuja
where I was detained with criminals for three months in a police
station. I was later paraded as a criminal," she said.
Revenge Mission
"After my release, I was determined to take thousands of
Nigerian girls to Burkina Faso. I became a girl-trafficker. I traveled
to my village, dressing gorgeously and flaunting money to young girls.
I was able to take some girls to Burkina Faso.
"I did this in annoyance because when I needed help, government
officials refused to help me because the people involved in
child-trafficking knew many security agents and they could bribe their
way out. I realized if one could join the group, it was easy to take
girls out of the country," she said.
Appeal to federal government
Enohuean, now mother of five children, called on the Federal
Government to tackle youth unemployment from further being trafficked
abroad for prostitution, adding that many of the girls become victims
because of their quest for employment and better life outside the
country.
"An unemployed hand is a prey for traffickers. State and
federal governments should please set up a body to look into the cases
of those trafficked abroad, especially for prostitution, with a view to
helping them. We have hundreds of our girls who are tired of the
business of prostitution abroad but now have nowhere to turn to," she said.
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