LUCY'S STORY

Lucy’s Story  Aunty Agatha listened attentively to my story and was quite shocked to find out that her friend Mrs Laraba had such bad intentions to get rid of me. She called the police and they came quickly to the house. I was asked to write a statement at the police station the next day and Mrs Laraba was picked up. She looked at me in disbelief. Her evil schemes had been exposed.

Aunty Agatha could not stop thanking God for bringing me back safely. She was thankful for Lucy and I. She had a great dinner for us, inviting neighbours and friends. What joy to be alive and back home!

One day when Kosa was out of town, Doda went to the house to visit Lucy. Knowing that Lucy was alone in the house, he made sexual ad­vances to her and when she refused, he raped her. He became very violent and threatened Lucy that if she told Kosa what had happened, he would change the story and convince his girlfriend that it was Lucy who had made advances to sleep with him.

Her first week in the den was hell. She was beaten daily and made to sleep with several men every evening. She hardly had enough food to eat. Here she was in this unknown place; a sex slave, living worse than an animal, with no free­dom. The rule was “do what they tell you and not what you think.” It was and is still a very dehumanizing experience. She felt like committing suicide on several occasions. It seemed God and her loved ones had abandoned her. “What was there to live for? Better to die than continue in the den,” she would often tell herself.

On a second thought, she decided to fight back psychologically and live. She was determined to seek for a way out of the den, no matter how long it would take. You could trust no one there with your secrets but her eyes always raged for free­dom. She wanted to see her parents and siblings again and these thoughts gave her courage to live.

Tobi the truck driver was the only one she could confide in. They arrived in the same week. He was made a sex slave and housekeeper for the boss. He suffered greatly. They had attempted to escape on two occasions but their plans were foiled. After living in the den for some years the boss began to entrust responsibilities to them but both of them never lost hope of regaining their freedom.
Therefore when Nkem arrived and Lucy saw in her the younger sister she needed to protect, she took the opportunity to escape with her  even if it meant being caught and killed.  Fortunately for them Tobi knew  so many routes and made friends at the Nigerian border so he could drive in and out without of­ficial documents

Aunty Agatha was eager to help Lucy get back to her family too. She gave Lucy a phone to call her parents and siblings. Her father could not be­lieve his ears when he heard his daughter’s voice. For the past five years he had been praying for her safe return home after she went missing. Her family lived in Edo state so they could not come to meet her right away in Lagos. It was arranged for Lucy to travel back home to them.  

The night before Lucy returned home, she narrated her story. She recalled that at the age of seventeen, after completing her secondary school, she moved to the city to live with her cousin Kosa. She was much older than Lucy and had a good job. Lucy, through Kosa’s help, got a job as sales girl. She worked so as to save up for her tertiary education since her parents could not afford to send her to the university. Lucy’s cousin had a boyfriend named Doda who visited them often.

 

Lucy was trapped. She wept bitterly. How was she going to continue living with her cousin after this horrific experience? When Kosa returned to the house Lucy narrated her ordeal. Kosa was in­furiated by her boyfriend’s act. They reported the case to the police and after further investigations, it was discovered that Doda had done the same to some other girls who did not have the courage to speak out. He was arrested and imprisoned.

Unknown to Kosa, Doda was also a member of a big bad gang that was into human trafficking. His gang members abducted Lucy on her way from work one evening and sold her to the owner of the den outside Nigeria. She cried and wailed but no help came for her. She met some other girls in the same situation in the den. They had either been abducted or lured by some friends to this way of life.