The experience of Ifekoya
Adejoke is as harrowing as it is heart-breaking. Lured by a false promise of
‘greener pastures’ abroad, the young Nigerian ended up a merciless victim of
human trafficking, chained to a bed in a dingy, dirty Libyan room and forced to
sexually satisfy up to 30 men in a single night...
Adejoke, a Lagos indigene, explained that an
impoverished background led her to survive by hawking water as a young girl
before she becoming an apprentice hair stylist.
“When I lost my dad, his
family claimed my mum was responsible for his death,” the 21 year old tearfully said, sharing her experiences at a popular
church in Lagos. “They left us with
her and ever since then, she has been the one catering for us.”
Aged 19, a middle-aged lady walked into the shop
where she was styling and approached her with an unusual proposal. “She came to me and said there was a country
she was staying in and if she took me to that country, I would make money and
would be able to cater for my family.”
“My happiness knew no
bounds,” she recalled, her judgement veiled by the blind
promise of greener pastures. “I said,
‘Finally, an angel has come’. Unknown to me, she was a devil in human’s
clothing.”
Just one week later, without even informing her mum
or siblings, Ifekoya was in a vehicle with the mysterious lady en route to
Libya. “She said when we got there, we
would board a flight to Spain where I would start work as a stylist”
The long journey by road through the infamous
Sahara Desert was nothing short of hellish. “We were seeing dead bodies strewn on the ground,” she
reminisced, shuddering at the grisly recollection.
“Even the vehicle that
was following us directly passed on top of a buried bomb; the vehicle just exploded
and everybody there died.” Ifekoya witnessed scenes far
too horrific to repeat as masked men attacked a vehicle close to hers, beating
the occupants to a stupor and raping the women inside.
Finally making it to Libya’s capital city of
Tripoli, Adejoke was taken by the woman to a duplex. The first glimpse of her
new home was a shock to behold. “I met
five Nigerian girls there who were half-naked,” she stated. Smiling
wryly at her bewildered confusion, the woman said she would ‘explain everything
tomorrow’.
“The following morning,
when I woke up, she brought some underwear for me and said these were the
clothes I must use to work,” the young Nigerian narrated
to the sober crowd.
As realisation dawned to what she had unknowingly
entangled herself in, Ifekoya bluntly refused. “That afternoon, people said they wanted to meet me because I was new
but I protested,” she continued.
“So, the woman went
outside and brought a cane. They really beat me up until I was very weak. She
then took me to one of the rooms and tied me down there. She tied my hands to
the back of my head and tied my legs separately so that they were open. That
very day, 30 men used me in the room where I was chained.”
Shackled as a sex slave alone in the dark, dirty
room save for the ravenous men who forced themselves on her, Ifekoya’s
willpower slowly began wilting.
“After two weeks, the
other girls came to me and said that if I didn’t accept to do this, she would
tie me down for two years. When I knew the whole thing was like that, I just
accepted.”
Informed that she would have to repay a total of
$9,000 to the devilish lady to ‘cover the costs’ of her travel to Libya, the
young Nigerian prostituted for almost one year before finally ‘earning’ enough
to ‘buy’ her freedom.
However, as hope finally beckoned that she could
leave such hellish lifestyle, fate struck another venomous blow. “Immediately I planned to leave the place, I
started falling sick – seriously sick.”
Nearly one year of sleeping with multiple men on a
nightly basis had taken its toll on her young body. “To my greatest surprise, my womb fell. I had to be taken to the
hospital where they operated on me to remove it.”
Feeble and practically penniless, Ifekoya now faced
the ominous challenge of making enough money for the journey back to Nigeria.
Her options were limited. “At the end
of the day, I had no choice. I still had to resort to the same thing to come
back to Nigeria,” she admitted.
Eventually ending up in another brothel, she began
saving up for the return leg of her nightmare journey. After encountering a
fellow Nigerian prostitute who had a similar story as a victim of deception and
exploitation, the duo struck a strong friendship and resolved to make the
journey together.
At this point, they made what turned out to be a
life-changing discovery. “It was when
we were in one of our friend’s houses that we were introduced to Emmanuel TV,”
she explained. “We started watching
and praying along with it.”
Almost 2 years after her intrepid trip across the
Sahara Desert, Ifekoya and her friend embarked on the journey back to Nigeria.
Inspired by the clips they had seen on Emmanuel TV, the television station of
controversial Nigerian pastor T.B. Joshua, they decided to make The Synagogue,
Church Of All Nations (SCOAN) their first port of call.
After receiving prayer for ‘deliverance’ from the
‘spirit of prostitution’ and hearing of their sordid stories, Joshua decided to
give the ex-prostitutes N200,000 ($1,200) each to restart their lives.
“God has kept me alive
to pass this message across to the youth,” the young
Nigerian emotionally concluded, admonishing her age-mates not to fall prey to
the same tactics used to lure her into slavery.
By: Ihechukwu Njoku -
freelance Nigerian journalist