When 26-year-old Abigail Olori met
Alhaja Latifat and her husband three years ago, she felt she had met an angel
in human form who would turn the odds of her life for good. Considering the
fact that she had lost her parents and was saddled with the responsibility of
catering for her siblings, she jumped at the offer to travel to Italy to work
as an auxiliary nurse for the couple.
Unknown to her, however, she was
making the biggest mistake of her life. A look into the eyes of the frail
looking Abigail revealed misery, pains and betrayal that she has been subjected
to in the last three years. Coughing intermittently and straining herself to be
audible, she narrated her ordeal in the hands of her traffickers.
“I met Alhaja Latifat and her
husband in 2013 when they came to Nigeria; then I was 23-years-old. I knew them
via a relative of mine, Rofel, when I was residing in Bayelsa with my siblings.
Rofel invited me to Lagos; it was during the visit to Lagos that I was
introduced to Alhaja Latifat who promised to take me to Italy”, she stated.
“Before the journey, they said they
wanted me to become an auxiliary nurse for them in Italy but unfortunately I
found myself in Libya. They took me via the desert. We were about 30 that were
taken to Libya from Nigeria.
“Since I didn’t have parents, I was
only able to raise N10, 000 which the alhaja claimed was for the passport she
procured for me.
The agreement was that I will work
and pay her N2.4 million once I get to Italy which included the amount she
spent to take me abroad and the return on her investment. “Before we left
Nigeria, they took us to a native doctor called Ewe in Abeokuta, Ogun State
where we were made to swear an oath.
It was after the oath that we were
taken to Libya instead of Italy. “Initially when I got to Libya and found out
that my responsibility was to abort pregnancies for young girls, I refused but
Alhaja Latifat and her husband locked me up in a room and beat me severely with
a mop stick I had no option but to bulge.
Each time I refused to perform
abortion for any of the girls, they will lock me up and beat me. “That was how
I started assisting them to terminate unwanted pregnancies for the young girls
who were working as call girls for Alhaja Latifat.
“We had girls within the ages of
10-15 working as call girls, sleeping with all sorts of men unprotected.
Most of the girls were forced to
sleep with elderly men as old as 60 years-old. Some of these girls confessed to
me that they were hairdressing apprentices and fashion designers before they
were deceived to come to Libya to work as prostitutes.
“Any of the girls who refused to
work, they will beat her up. Some of the girls who attempted to escape got into
more trouble as they were resold to other traffickers in Libya. “My main
responsibility was to carry out abortion for the girls forced into
prostitution. By my calculation, I would have aborted 320 pregnancies in the
process.
They built instrument which I used
to perform the abortion on the girls. If a pregnancy was about a month, and the
girl in question notified Alhaja Latifat about the development, the Alhaja
Alhaja will not allow me to abort the baby till the pregnancy was about four or
five months old. “Apart from carrying out abortions, I also performed the job
of a physician to the girls. “They had about three houses which were used as
brothels to house the girls who worked as call girls.
I resided in one of the brothels
called New York. The second was called White House. I can’t remember the name
of the third one. “I worked for the alhaja for about three years and I was able
to raise the amount from the abortion I was performing on the girls and the
money I got from my male friends who were into armed robbery in Libya. Like the
call girls, I was not allowed to operate a bank account.
Since I didn’t operate any bank
account, the money I earned was kept with Alhaja Latifat. Within two years I
was able to pay the N2.4m agreed amount on the contract and also give her N1.5M
which I kept with her as my personal savings.
“Meanwhile, trouble started after I
demanded that she gives me back my N1.5m which was with her as I wanted to
return to Nigeria. Immediately after I demanded for my money, this strange
sickness started. I began to grow thin and lose weight. And then skin rashes
began to appear all over my body. Look at me I am now a shadow of myself.
I don’t know what is wrong with me.
I feel very weak too. “I was rescued alongside two other girls weeks after
Basirat and Omobolanle were rescued through an NGO, Alliance for Rights
Defender, owned by human activists and lawyer, Mr. Ojay Akinwale.
Mr Akinwale has been the one working
with operatives of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in
Persons (NAPTIP). Since I was rescued and brought back to Nigeria, Alliance for
Rights Defender has been instrumental to providing medical care for me.
I want to get well first and I also
want the Federal Government to investigate Alhaja Latifat, her husband and
others running this human trafficking as a family business by taking advantage
of young girls from indigent families”.
Source:Vanguard
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