Six Nigerian women have been sent back
to the country from the Burkina Faso where they were allegedly taken to
for prostitution by
a woman, named Balikis.
While re-uniting the girls with their
parents in Ibadan, Oyo State, on Wednesday, the Comptroller of the
Nigeria Immigration Service, Oyo State Command, Innocent Akatu, said the
girls were tricked to leave Nigeria, adding that the victims did not
tell their parents about the journey.
Akatu said the girls refused to engage
in prostitution in Ouagadougu, Burkina Fasso, and were locked in a room
by the trafficker. trafficking
He added that their journey back home after three weeks began when one of them escaped and alerted the Burkinabe police.
He
said, “The victims, after being smuggled to Ouagadougou in Burkina
Faso, discovered that they were going to be used for prostitution. They
were not even told that they were going to Burkina Faso. These girls
were told that they would be given lucrative jobs abroad; one of them
was told that she was going to manage a jewellery shop owned by her
trafficker.
“One of them was taken from her home in
Ikorodu, Lagos State, and driven to Saki in Oyo State. When she asked
why it had taken them so long to reach the airport, she was told that
the plane had left and that they would have to travel by road.
“The Nigerian embassy assisted in
arranging emergency travelling documents for them to return to Nigeria
after their lucky escape. We have taken them to the hospital for
screening and they are HIV negative.”
One of the returnees, Ganiyat Samuel, said she lived with her grandmother in Ikorodu before she embarked on the journey.
She said, “A woman, called Balikis, came
to me and said that I would make more money as a fashion designer if I
travel outside Nigeria. I told her that I had no passport, but she said
that she would take care of it. I did not tell any of my parents.
“When we got to Saki, she said she could
not get a passport for me because the office had closed. We travelled
for two days to get to Burkina Faso. She took me to her house and told
me that I would have to do HIV test. The test revealed that I was
pregnant, but HIV negative. She told me that she brought me to the
country for prostitution and that I would have to abort the pregnancy. I
refused and she locked me in a room. When she brought another Nigerian a
week later, I helped the girl to escape and she alerted the police. The
police rescued us and arrested the woman.”
Samuel’s mother, Olasunkanmi Afuwape,
said her father had died and after she re-married, she took the girl and
her brother to live with her mother in Ikorodu.
Source: Punch Newspaper
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