Among the latest three rescued girls is 26-year-old Abigail. Abigail and the two other rescued girls are ill and have been undergoing treatment since they returned to Nigeria. They looked pale and had rashes all over their bodies. Abigail, who had spent three years in Libya, said she was glad to be home.
It was gathered that following media reports on the activities of the syndicate, Lateefat and Sanni, had allegedly started selling off the girls in their captivity to other traffickers in Libya.
Abigail is a nurse and was forced by Lateefat and Sanni to carry out series of abortions on Nigerians girls forced into prostitution in Libya.
She confessed to have carried out over 320 abortions for Nigerian girls held captive in Libya by the couple before she was rescued.
Abigail recounted: “These girls were forced to sleep with men as old as 50 years without protection. I got beaten whenever I refused to abort for the girls. Lateefat would use the stick part of a mop to hit me mercilessly. I have aborted over 320 pregnancies. The teenage girls also told me they used cucumbers to deflower them before they were forced to sleep with men.”
Speaking barely above a whisper, Abigail said: “I’m an orphan, living in Bayelsa State with my siblings. I’m the oldest child. My parents are dead. After my parents died, the responsibility of taking care of my siblings fell on me. Sometimes in 2013, my sister's friend, a nurse, came to our house in Bayelsa.
“She promised to introduce me to people that would assist me financially. I was interested. She took me to see Lateefat and her husband Sanni. They told me they could help me to make good money as an auxiliary nurse in Italy. They assured me they had connections in Italy.”
The couple asked her to pay N10, 000 for passport, which she did. She was surprised when Sanni took her and two other girls to an herbalist, called Ewe. The herbalist prepared a concoction and compelled them to eat it.
After eating the concoction, Sanni immediately took them to the bus park, where they boarded a bus going to Kano.
Abigail said: “We met other agents who later moved us by road through the desert to Libya. I was scared. I asked when we would take the plane to Italy, but the agent told that we had to go through desert first before boarding the plane. At the end, we landed in Libya and Sanni told us that we had reached our destination. They locked us up in a room with 50 other girls. We were not allowed to go out and they beat us mercilessly if we attempted to escape."
It was when she got to Libya; Abigail realized why she was tricked to Libya. They wanted Abigail professional experience in aborting pregnancies for the girls forced into prostitution.
She said: “I was later moved from the room where I stayed with other girls to a private one, where I was locked up. Sanni and his wife controlled two brothels. One is called New York Up and the other White House. I was in New York Up alone in a room where they kept surgical instruments for me to abort pregnancies. Each day, they bring girls to my room for abortions. Lateefat doesn’t allow the girls to abort when they are a month pregnant. She would wait until the pregnancies are up to four months and then she would force me to abort them.”
According to her, all the Nigerians girls were deceived into coming to Libya with Lateefat and Sanni. Abigail said almost everyone was told she was being taken to Italy or US for hairdressing or sewing jobs.
She said that some of the girls were between nine and 15 years. She said that most the customers were criminals, but Lateefat and Sanni didn’t give a hoot. All their interest was on the money the girls’ prostitution brings. Abigail further narrated how she and other girls were forced to part with millions of naira before they were freed.
She said:" I got fed up with the situation in the brothel and I went to meet Lateefat. I begged her to give me my freedom, but she beat me up. She said I had to pay her N2.4 m before I could go. I had to look for the money because she said that's what the other girls paid. Since I didn’t have parents or any relations, who would send the money to her, I had to work to raise the money for my freedom. God assisted me by bringing two men to assist me pay. These men were armed robbers and whenever they come to visit me, I take from their money and paid gradually until I paid up the N2.4 million.
“Lateefat and her husband still owe me N1.5 million for the work I did for them. It’s sad that I didn’t come back with anything to show for my three years labour in Libya. They took my money and put this sickness in me. I became very ill after I told Sanni in January that I couldn’t continue to work for them. He refused to pay me my money. I got help from a church through the assistance of Alliance of Rights Defenders (ARD) to come back to Nigeria. I and two other girls were brought back by air on March 11th. We are very ill and need government help."
Following the revelations by the victims, ARD had since petitioned the Inspector General of Police, (IGP), Mr. Solomon Arase, to arrest members of the fleeing syndicate and rescue other girls still held captive in Libya.
It was gathered that Arase had since directed the Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) in charge of Zone 2, Onikan Lagos, Mr. Bala Hassan, to investigate the syndicate.
The Chief Executive Officer of ARD, Barrister Ojay Akinwale, said: “We have taken the responsibility of footing their medical bill since we returned them to Nigeria. These ladies are ill and in urgent need of medication and rehabilitation following the ordeal they passed through."
Prince Tunji Oshokoya, a private investigator who worked with ARD to locate the girls in Libya and also assisted in returning them to Nigeria urged government to help rescue other girls.
Oshokoya added: “We are also working hard to fish out other members of the cartel. It’s sad that following our pressure and media reports on the trafficking ring, the syndicate is now selling the girls in their custody to other cartels in other countries. Government should wake up and treat human trafficking issues with the seriousness it deserves.”
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Unbelievable
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