PROSTITUTION

Den of Prostitutes: Mrs Laraba figured out that if she let me go I would tarnish her image. Therefore she thought of another plan to dispose of me or keep me where I would never be able to find my way back home. I heard her making a phone call and then she drove for hours to an unknown destination.

 I kept on praying to God to deliver me from the evil schemes that lay ahead of me. I fell asleep again and only woke up at the sound of people around me. “Where am I?” I asked. I looked around me and found a group of young girls star­ing at me. When I finally came to full conscious­ness I was told I was in a brothel of prostitutes. “Oh my God, how did I get here? What was I do­ing here?” I then remembered Mrs Laraba. I wept bitterly!

The other girls felt sorry for me but could only say, “welcome to our den.” “Oh my God, why have you abandoned me? Virgin Mary where are you?” I called out to my mother and asked her if she was still watching over me. This was the sad­dest day of my life.

I was told I was in a place far away outside Nigeria. Mrs Laraba must have driven across the border to dump me here. By evening I saw all the girls dressed half naked, with all sorts of skimpy clothes and make-up on their faces. I was told to wait for my initiation and kept in the care of an older girl named Lucy. I asked the initiation meant and what it was going to be like. She told me out rightly, “here we earn our living by sleeping with men. You do not have to like it, you just do what they tell you. The Madam that brought you here will be heavily paid while you work for hours using your body for money.”

I nearly fainted! “So all these stories of human trafficking and forced sex workers were true?” “God please deliver me from this den of prosti­tutes!” I cried and cried. I could not imagine my­self being disvirgined by the sort of men she mentioned to me. I immediately started thinking of a way out of there. This isn’t what God wants for me. No, I will not allow them to ruin my life. I begged Lucy to help me run away, to escape from this dungeon of hell.

I did not sleep that night. I stayed awake, trembling and praying not to be called out to have sex with any of those bad men. Lucy was kind enough to protect me that night. When the owner of the brothel came asking for the new girl, she told him she was very sick and needed a day or two to be well enough for the job. At the sound of his voice I cringed in fear, not wanting him to see or remember my face.

The other girls returned at about 5am. One had a bad cut on her face, she said her client beat her up when she refused to go for more than five rounds with him. She looked weak and in much pain. Lucy helped to clean the cut and apply some ointment on it. Another girl started vomiting profusely, she was pregnant and had been told to abort the pregnancy but the baby refused to die. She was told she had to “flush it out” to continue working or starve to death. Her ill health and the baby were bad news to this business. I said to myself, “what cruelty! No woman deserved this kind of treatment.”

In this den of sex slaves, if you want to run away, you must leave and escape as far as pos­sible. Hanging around in a city or village nearby the den was dangerous and could lead to one be­ing killed. The girls narrated so many frightening stories.  One thing was clear from look of the faces of these young girls, most of them were lured to this place and way of life. They were working as sex slaves against their will. They were far away from home, and often felt betrayed, used, destroyed and now too ashamed to return home.