Although she was bright, school was out of the question. Instead she sold chillies in a market in Benin City, southern Nigeria, making barely enough to feed herself and her baby.
When Ama was offered a chance to work as a domestic cleaner in Britain she saw it as a route to a better life. She would have to borrow £50,000 to pay the “agents” but would earn £300 a week, enabling her to pay £150 towards her debt and still be able to send money home. “I was happy,” she said.
But Ama’s happiness was short-lived as she was dragged into a nightmare world of witchcraft, mutilation and, when she finally made it to Britain, forced prostitution.
First she had to swear an oath to pay back the cost of her passage to England. Then she was taken into the bush by a juju priest, or witchdoctor, for a grisly ritual practised widely in west Africa. The priest stripped her, bathed her in goat’s blood, cut her head and chest with razor blades, and pushed black soot into the open wounds. He took snippets of her hair, finger nails and “private” hair which he placed in small jars.
The ritual was used to take control of Ama’s mind, soul and sexuality. Afterwards, she was forced to swallow a bitter liquid mixed with blood. By drinking it, she had signed a covenant of silence and was warned that if she told anyone what was happening to her, a thunderbolt would strike her dead. Like many in Nigeria, Ama was terrified of the power of juju.
Soon she was on her way to a three-bedroom flat on the edge of Birmingham where the brutal reality was brought home to her. The three men holding her told her she had to “do prostitution”. She shakes her head as she recalls her terror. “They’d paid, so I had to do what they told me to do. I was scared that I’d be killed and no one would even know.”
Since the start of last year, 249 Nigerians, including 73 children, have been identified as potential trafficking victims, among the highest figure for any nationality, according to the UK’s national referral mechanism, set up to ensure victims are identified and supported. The Serious Organised Crime Agency said 79 potential Nigerian victims were sexually exploited last year.
Most are from Edo state, southern Nigeria; all have been through juju ceremonies which bind the girls to their traffickers. The trade in human lives is rooted in fear and poverty and fuelled by demand from the western sex industry.
Ama was moved around, to different houses with different girls. Most were teenagers but there were also women in their forties still trying to pay off the “debt” to the traffickers. Ama’s “customers” were mostly married men in their forties and fifties. Her work, at the flat, hotels and houses, went on day and night. “I was worn out, because everyone wanted to try the new girl,” she says.
Dorcas Erskine, from the Poppy Project, which supports trafficked women, says that some men are “turned on” by the idea of sexual slavery. Research suggests that the market in the West for younger Nigerian girls is thriving. A report by the charity Eaves found that more than half of 103 London men interviewed believed that most women and girls they had paid to have sex with had been trafficked.
Hermione Harris, an anthropologist and expert witness in the few UK juju cases that have resulted in prosecutions, says: “A juju priest will take body parts and often girls’ underwear. It’s like a form of remote control. The girls swear an oath not to reveal what has happened and not to try to escape on pain of death, mental illness or infertility.” Crucially, it prevents victims from coming forward or giving evidence.
This may explain research that shows the violence used to control women from Nigeria is much less than is used on those from eastern Europe.
Andy Desmond, a Scotland Yard detective who has investigated human trafficking from Nigeria since 2008, has worked on the last three trafficking prosecutions in Britain. But such inquiries are expensive and he believes new police priorities will mean fewer prosecutions.
Britain is both a destination and a transit country for traffickers. The girls are “broken in” — raped — by the criminals before travelling abroad. At Heathrow many of the girls are taken into local authority care but they always have a phone, with the trafficker’s number, hidden in hairpieces or sewn into the seams of their jeans. One call and they disappear.
Philip Ishola, director of the Counter Human Trafficking Bureau, says the British system makes it easy for traffickers. “The mechanisms for protecting children are all there but there is no safe house in the whole of the UK for trafficked children,” he says.
Ishola says juju cases are similar to those of children sexually exploited by gangs. “It’s grooming by another name. Girls who’ve been through juju ceremonies are highly controlled and traumatised.”
All 12 girls in the first house that Ama stayed at had been through juju rituals and more girls arrived every week. But the trail of misery starts in Edo where mothers sell their children into prostitution. “It’s hard to understand,” says Ama. “But when every day you struggle to find enough food, it’s one less mouth to feed.”
The Nigerian government plans to toughen anti-trafficking laws and is educating girls about trafficking but the gangs move to poorer, more remote areas to find victims.
Last week Theresa May, the home secretary, announced a Modern Slavery Bill but it will come too late to help Ama.
She eventually escaped from her brothel and found refuge at a Poppy Project safe house but she still fears that juju will kill her and leave her 18-month-old boy, Isaiah, alone in the world.
In Nigeria, the tragic cycle continues. Ama’s daughter, now 12, also has a baby conceived through sexual exploitation. “I didn’t have money to send her so she was fighting for her life, going with older men for food,” says Ama. “I came here because I wanted so much to give her a good life. I thought England was a safe place.” Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
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What about those on Allen Avenue? May be they were forced with Ayelala
ReplyDeleteleave the problem and tackle the cause. were Nigerian girls opting to go abroad for prostitution wen families had to send money abroad for their relatives to school there? were girls running abroad wen exchange rate was 70k to $1? make the country better, give hope & opportunity to those ready to struggle and make it in life and see if any would think or even succumb to any of these vices. no matter the anti trafficking laws, just like corruption is synanymous with Nigerian leaders, both traffickers and the trafficked will find a way to beat the law. remmember, "when the good guys build a ten feet wall, the bad guys always come with an eleven feet ladder."
ReplyDelete