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| Trafficking victims |
Miss Peju Akins (pseudonym) was offered a poisoned chalice in a Lagos
church in January, 2015; she embraced it hook, line and sinker!
A lady she met during Sunday service painted the rosy picture of
Libya, with the streets of Tripoli “flowing with milk and honey’’, and
the promise that after making money in the North African country, she
would easily migrate to Europe.
“I’m lucky to be back in Nigeria alive; many died during the
one-month trip through the desert, especially between Agadez in Niger
Republic and the Libyan capital, Tripoli. My ‘burger’ (trafficker)
succeeded in convincing another lady to make the trip with us from
Lagos. We were seeking better life, but it was a regrettable trip and a
waste of almost two years of my life.’’
Peju, 26, holds a National Diploma (ND) in business administration from a polytechnic in Nigeria’s South-West.
She says the first leg of the ill-fated trip, from Lagos to Kano, was
fun. Then the next call between Kano and Agadez in Niger Republic, a
distance of 715 kilometres, was stressful as they had no travelling
documents.
“Border officials exploited us; checkpoints mounted by Nigerien
gendarmes did the same. But, the horror started in Agadez. Any semblance
of a road network ended at Agadez; all I could see was endless sand
dunes like I have seen water at the ocean shore in Lagos. The heat and
the dust were horrible.
“In addition, we were considered as mere merchandise over which
people haggled for prices that could favour them. We spent five days in
Agadez because the trip through the desert starts from there only on
Mondays.
“In Agadez, our group met hundreds of black people from across the
ECOWAS sub-region, assembled for the suicidal desert trip to Libya.’’
According to Peju, only four-wheel-drive, double-cabin pick-up vans
are being used for the desert trip, with each taking between 20 and 30
migrants.
She says they were loaded in the cargo cabin of each pick-up van,
with most of their bodies hanging out of the van, each hapless traveller
holding a stick tied to a rope in the cabin, to stop them from falling
off during the bumpy ride.
“Between Agadez and Qatroun, (in Niger Republic) and Sabha in the
middle of Libya, we were kidnapped many times by militia groups that
raped some of the ladies. There was so much shooting, though nobody in
my vehicle was hit.
“We were told of rotting corpses littering some areas of the desert,
but our driver must have avoided such spots so as not to further scare
us. Each kidnapping meant being locked up in ‘prison’ until ransom was
paid. My human trafficker saw to the negotiations.’’
Peju finally got to Tripoli, after covering about 3,500 kilometres of road, mostly uncharted desert.
“I thought my nightmare was over when we got to Tripoli; little did I
know it had just begun. I and my fellow church member were allowed to
scrub off the smell and dirt of the desert in a bathroom, and a change
of dress, before being driven to a large compound they call ‘connection
house’.
“The ‘connection house’ is the alias for a brothel. Without much
hesitation, two elderly ladies, a Yoruba and an Ibo from Nigeria,
casually asked if we would like to start with ‘one-round’, ‘short time’
or ‘all-night’ patrons’’.
She says she later understood that ‘one-round’ means having sex with a
man once for the equivalent of N1,000 in Libya dinar, ‘short-time’
means three hours of sex for N3,000 equivalent, while ‘all-night’ means
copulation from dusk to dawn for N6,000.
“We both protested that we would not do ‘asewo’ (commercial sex work)
and that our ‘burger’ (trafficker) only promised to get us housemaid
jobs. The next five days was hell as the two of us were locked up in a
room, without food and water, and constantly beaten up.
“Close to death on the fifth day, they called in a nurse to clean us
up, feed us and allow us to change clothes. Then they told us we had to
contact our families in Nigeria to wire N500,000 each to them or we
would be drugged and forced into prostitution.’’
Peju says they were then allowed to have a mobile phone and alerted families back home in Nigeria of their predicament.
“The Yoruba woman spoke with my father in Lagos and in tears, he
promised to send the money within a week. My father begged them not to
harm or force me into prostitution.
“My co-traveller was the first to control (wire) money from Nigeria.
My daddy finally sent my ransom — which he borrowed here and there.
“The matron then converted me to her salesgirl. I was in charge of
selling brandy and whisky, condoms, diapers, creams and other materials
the ‘asewos’ needed for their carnal jobs.
“Yes, there are no babies in need of diapers, but the absorbent in
them were being removed, creamed and forced down the private parts of
the commercial sex workers to protect their womb (cervix) from being
ruptured by their clients.’’
Peju says the absorbents were usually ‘popped’ out by the girls after
sex, washed and creamed for reuse. She says this is because the men
coming to sleep with them usually take sex enhancers that prolong the
act and often bruise the girls to the extent that they bleed from their
private parts.
“The men who come to the brothel use cocaine, ‘tramadol’, hashish
(the Arab equivalent of marijuana), and many other illicit drugs, so
that they can punish the girls who stay four in a room, separated by
mere curtains.
“I spent five months in the brothel, but not into prostitution. I was
sleeping on a bare floor all the while, disturbed by the groaning and
crying of the sex workers.
“One night, a girl was screaming — more than usual — and the matrons
have to burst into her bed-space. An over-drugged man was stuck to her
like dogs in mating!
“He had to be physically ‘removed’ from the girl and his money
refunded! Another girl ran mad and was defecating everywhere and putting
the mess in her mouth. Her legs and face were swollen; she was always
murmuring. She later died and was secretly taken to the desert for
burial in an unmarked shallow grave. Her death was not even relayed to
her family in Nigeria.’’
Peju left her vendor’s job at the brothel to become a khaddamah (a
maid) and she was paid the equivalent of N60,000 a month by a kind Arab
family.
“But my main problem was the language barrier. Even though I could
then understand and speak a few Arabic words, I was making mistakes when
sent on errand within the house. I was with the family for about six
months as maid; I saved most of my salary.
“I then became a seller of African (mostly Nigerian) foodstuffs, such
as beans, gari, seasoning cubes, etc, being ferried across the desert
by Nigerian businessmen from Kano. I was sharing an apartment with a
Nigerian family.’’
However, she finally reconsidered her stay in Libya when her
apartment was raided one night by gun-toting Libyan officials and all
the residents locked up in jail for being illegal immigrants.
“The raid happened when I had started making money; I was free and I
even had a Yoruba boyfriend, an engineer, who was always going to Malta
(Europe) by boat to fix doors, POP ceilings and other building
materials.
“We were put in jail and after some days, asked to pay the equivalent
of N100,000 each to secure our freedom. I’ve had enough; so, refused to
pay and told them I wanted to go back to Nigeria. From then on, they
never allowed me to get back to my apartment and properties.’’
Peju says the Libyan immigration allowed her to purchase temporary
travelling documents and escorted her to the airport to board a plane
for Niamey in Niger Republic.
“All the money my friends were able to raise while I was in jail was
spent on travelling documents and the one-way flight to Niamey. I spent
two days at the motor park in Niamey before I met a kind Nigerian man
who gave me 25,000 francs (CFA) with which I came back to Lagos.
“The jogging trouser and blouse I wore to bed the night I was
arrested were all the possession I came back with in mid-November 2016.
Giant mosquitoes feasted on me so much in Libyan prison that I was
pockmarked as if I had measles.’’
Peju never contemplated being smuggled across the Mediterranean Ocean
to Europe again because her eyes had opened to the mass death suffered
by those who dared.
“I am appealing to Nigerian youngsters to dissuade their minds from
planning to get to Europe through Libya, especially taking the desert
routes.
“Yes, there is more money in Libya than Nigeria for hustlers, so is
death in the desert or in the Mediterranean Sea. Besides, the suffering
the girls go through in the brothels is worse than death.’’
Unlike migrants’ drowning in the Mediterranean that is often
documented by European navies and coastguards, death through shooting,
starvation and dehydration in the vast desert is largely unaccounted
for. Only a small fraction of those who dare will make it to Europe.
Apart from the militia elements of Islamic State, al Qaeda and others
involved in the ongoing Libyan civil wars, armed Touaregs and Berber
groups use the desert routes for kidnapping and ransom collection.
Some of the kidnapped migrant males are often sold into slave labour,
forced to join the militias or get killed. The ladies among them,
according to Wikipedia, can be converted to wives of bandits or
fighters, and even sold as sex slaves to owners of brothels. A captured
migrant is a slave to the desert warlord who got him or her.
The Sahara desert is in a “state of nature’’ and might is right.
AK-47 assault rifle is king. Travel through the desert as “economic
migrants’’ is a perilous and unworthy risk.
NANFEATURES
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