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6 Nigerian girls have been returned to the country from
Burkina Faso where they were allegedly taken to work
as prostitutes 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-Faso, hence were locked in a
room by the trafficker.
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: Naijaheaven
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