As a record number of Nigerians arrive in Europe annually by boat, there is growing alarm of fear from experts they are the victims of illegal sex trading.
The United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime named Nigeria as one of the worst eight countries in the world for human trafficking.
Over four times as many women from Nigeria have arrived in Italy over the past year, according to a new report by the International Organization for Migration.
Fears have been raised that many fell victim to Europe’s growing sex trade.
According to the Migration report more than 1,200 Nigerian women came to Italy by boat in 2014 compared to 300 the previous year. “We don’t have the official figures yet but estimates suggest as many as 80 percent of the women are earmarked for sex work,” said the migration agency’s spokesperson Flavio Di Giacomo.
Evidence gathered in Nigeria by human rights activists suggest, one-in-three women in Benin City, have been approached by local traffickers. Promising them non-existent jobs if they go to Europe.
Many of the women who agree are then raped, beaten, and psychologically abused by members of the Nigerian mafia that control the trade.
The use of repeated violence throughout the women’s journey is aimed as a seemingly training them for intensive exploitation once in Europe.
Forced to work without contraception, under pressure to pay off the debt of their trip, a debt which runs as high as 65,000 euros ($74,000).
Women have told anti traffickers “how they inserted wool from their mattresses inside their genitals, hoping it could in some way protect them.”
One victim a Blessing Johnson said “I slept on a mattress on the floor of the brothel and was allowed out only to prostitute myself … If I broke any of the rules, Queen would beat me with a broken glass bottle.”
Every night she was required to bring back 120 euros ($140), an average of six clients or more per day. Only part of this money went towards repaying her debt.
“The madams also charge them for food and accommodation as well as renting the sidewalk”.
In Nigeria, organized criminals often pose as benefactors offering to put the money for the women’s trip. The women are then often taken to a witch doctor, which performs a voodoo ceremony, where the women vow to repay the sum – and are told that if they fail to do so, they will die or become insane.
International funds are being cut. Human Rights organizations are struggling trying to help victims.
Where are the laws that protect these women?
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