A human trafficking syndicate based in Delta State has
reportedly abducted over 40 Nigerian girls, mainly below 18 years as sex slaves
for gold miners at a mining field in Burkina Faso, a West African country.
A rights activist in Warri, Delta State, Benefit Orugbo, in
a petition to the Area Commander, Nigeria Police Force, Warri, said that the
criminal gang, which contracted a voodoo priest to administer charms on the girls,
seized one of the girls, Miss Joy (surname withheld), aged 17 years, from Egini
community, Udu local government area, Delta State, about six months ago.
Nigerian couple among evil gang: He said a Nigerian couple
was among the evil group and urged the police to investigate the complaint and
bring all those found culpable to book to unshackle the girls.
Orugbo said: “Miss Joy was in early January, 2017 coerced,
detained, deceived and harboured by one the syndicate alongside two other girls
of about her age at Ashaka Hotel, Owo-Olomu in Ughelli South local government
area of the state for about four days within which period a member of the gang
took our client and other girls to a juju shrine at Ughelli, where a man who
claimed to be bishop Oku, the priest of the shrine, bathed and incised with a
razor on the foreheads, chest region and shoulder of our client and the other
girls and the incision rubbed with a substance which appears to be charm.”
He said they took Joy and other girls to Lagos from where
they proceeded to Cotonou and thereafter, Burkina Faso, where a lady member
“informed our client and the other girls that they have been sold to her in
order for our client and the other girls to do prostitution.
”She further informed
them that they would pay her the sum of N2,000,000 (two million naira) each and
our client and the other girls pleaded with her to send them back to Nigeria,
as their coming was not of their own freewill and that they cannot do
prostitution job as they have never been in that kind of job before.”
The solicitor said the syndicate sold the girls to the younger sister of a prominent Delta businessman, who in turn disposed them to yet another woman in Burkina Faso. The second woman took them to the bush where a doctor injected with a substance in their left armpit to prevent them from getting pregnant, Vanguard reports.
The solicitor said the syndicate sold the girls to the younger sister of a prominent Delta businessman, who in turn disposed them to yet another woman in Burkina Faso. The second woman took them to the bush where a doctor injected with a substance in their left armpit to prevent them from getting pregnant, Vanguard reports.
His words: “The second madam informed our client and the
other girls that the cost of sleeping with a man is one deuxmille, which is
equivalent to 2000 fcfa and the madam forced our client and the other girls to
sleep with about 16 men a day with the target of remitting nothing less than
6000 deuxmille a day or our client and the girls would be beaten mercilessly
and starved of food if they fail to meet the daily target. How cat was let out
of bag.
“Our client had to go through this awful experience on a
daily basis with about 40 other girls in the bush as sex slaves to the miners
since she was forced into prostitution in Burkina Faso until sometime in April
2017, when after so much search for our client by her relatives, one Cynthia
informed our client’s grandmother, Mrs. Martha, that she last saw our client
with one Mrs. Rita
“Our client’s family mounted pressure on Rita and her mother
for the whereabouts and return by them of our client and she was returned on
the 22nd of April, 2017 to Lagos and she arrived at Egini community on 23rd of
April, 2017,” he asserted. Orugbo noted: “However, at the border of Benin
Republic and Nigeria, the persons returning our client injected her with an
unknown substance without her consent.”
Appeal to Area
Commander: His words: “In the light of the forgoing, we herein pray you to
urgently investigate the above complaints and all those found culpable brought
to book and liberate the 40 other or so girls of less than 18 years used as sex
slaves for gold miners in Burkina Faso in order to rid the society and other
immediate neighbouring countries of persons, who willfully involve themselves
in trafficking in persons, abduction and sex slavery, which are offences
prohibited by the relevant criminal laws in Nigeria.”
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