Uba Josfyn and Sunday Ani
For Esther Adagbo, from Igbodo community in Ika Northeast Local Government Area of Delta State, Libya is hell on earth. The 38-year-old was among the gullible Nigerians that fell to the antics of evil men who relish in trafficking Nigerian ladies to Libya for prostitution. These wicked traffickers have no human sympathy. Their interest lies in their purse. They don’t care what happens to their victims, as long as the cash continues to flow into their pockets.
In Libya, she got what she never bargained for. She was forced into prostitution; a trade she was gruesomely tortured to accept at the risk of her life.
Genesis
Her journey to the North African country, which she described as hell on earth, started on March 6, 2014. According to her, a certain man called Onyo in her village sold the idea of going to Germany through Libya to work as a nanny, with every assurance that she would make it big once she got to Germany. She never knew that it was all a game plan to lure her into prostitution in Libya. Onyo demanded N30, 000 from her but she only managed to pay N15, 000 and promised to pay up later. He took her to Benin in Edo State and handed her over to two other persons, a man and a woman, whom he said were his business partners.
“Those ones took me to Abuja and handed me over to another person who led us into the desert. And there were several handover before we finally got to Libya, where we were dumped at a brothel, otherwise called ‘connection house.’ Meanwhile, they told me that we would take a flight; they didn’t tell me the journey would be through the desert. They even asked me to carry along with me just a few clothes and that they would buy better clothes for me when we get to Germany,” she stated.
Meanwhile, Miss Adagbo was comfortably working as a chef with the Guinness Company before the ill-fated journey. She had a moderately good life. But, like hundreds of other Nigerians who had gone through the same experiences, the quest for greener pasture was her albatross. She could have lost her life both in the desert and in Libya, but God saved her through the timely intervention of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).
Desert journey
Like others before her, it was hellish wading through the desert to reach Libya. She summed her experience up thus: “At a point in desert, some passengers inside the Hillux open van almost pushed me off the vehicle. I was saved by a man who asked me to hold on to him. I tenaciously held on to that man all through the journey. It was a terrible experience. We were about 27 inside the vehicle.
“The violent breeze in the desert almost turned me to a blind and deaf person. Sand filled my ears and eyes, so much that I could not hear very well, neither could I see clearly. I developed a distended stomach and I could not breathe well. My throat almost blocked and I coughed ceaselessly. There was no water and I drank my own urine just to survive. Though all the 27 of us survived to Libya, some fainted and were only revived during the journey. We spent an agonising two weeks in the desert. It was terrible and hellish.”
Libya Connection House
Connection house is a sobriquet for brothel. It is like a brothel, where men go to get women for sex. That is where most African ladies, including those from Nigeria, are dumped once they get to Libya. It is where they get their first baptism of fire by being forced into the illicit business of prostitution. It is there they realise what they had actually got themselves into.
Having survived the harsh elements in the desert, they are welcomed to Libya with another round of dehumanising treatment.
The Delta State-born Adagbo revealed that what happened in Connection House was unbelievable to her. She was frightened to the marrow but she had to face reality in order to survive. She was surprised that the woman who owned the connection house was the one allocating the ladies to the men who needed sex.
“She did the whole transaction through phone calls. A man would call and say he needed a woman and the woman would quickly arrange and assign a girl for the job,” she said.
How she caved in
On her personal experience at the connection house, she said: “The woman that took me to Libya also dumped me in a connection house where I was forced into prostitution. When it was clear to me that the work I was going to do was prostitution, I called the man who linked me in my village and he told me that it was the available job which would give me quick money. They tutored me on how to do the prostitution work, but when I kept turning down customers because I didn’t want to do the work, they reported me to the woman who almost killed me. She, together with other girls, beat me with wire and pipe, inflicting injuries all over my body. They also used cigarette to burn my body. After the torture, I surrendered and joined the illicit sex business.”
She said she was to pay N7 million to the woman who bought her in Libya. “I was into the sex business for one year and when I was almost about to complete the money, she wanted to sell me to another woman. But, some Ghana boys who knew me told the other woman that wanted to buy me that she should not buy me because I was not a ‘Jedit’ (newcomer), but an old person in Libya. So, I was rejected and when I went back, I received another serious beating from the madam and the girls. They accused me of leaking their secrets. She later sold me to another person, and that was where I met a Delta man who later helped me to escape. He told my madam he wanted to take me to his house for overnight sex romp, but she did not allow him because she suspected he wanted to run away with me.
Escape from prostitution
“Eventually, an Arab man came to hire me as a house help. It was from the house help job that I escaped finally. The people who helped me to escape asked me to pay N100, 000, but I only had N35, 000, so they collected that from me. Later, the Delta man, with another man called Mike, rented a house and put me there. They would lock me inside anytime they wanted to go out and I would remain indoors until they came back. I stayed there until they were able to raise N170, 000 from Nigeria. With that money, they wanted to push me through the sea to Italy that night, March 5, 2017. But, unfortunately, we were arrested inside the sea by the Libyan Coast Guards and that was how I escaped from prostitution. We were eventually thrown into prison.”
Prison and eventual rescue
She stated that she went to four different prisons in Libya. “A day after we were put in the prison, we were taken to another prison where we spent two weeks. In the first prison, I only spent a day, so there was no much experience, but in the second prison, they beat our girls. Some escaped and were rearrested. The third prison called Rasta Prison was where they beat me because the policeman said I was making noise. He beat me with rod so much that I fainted. I couldn’t go to toilet and I couldn’t urinate. They drug our food. In fact, I was almost dead in the Rasta Prison, where I spent eight months and a week.
“It was from there that the IOM came to ask for those that wanted to return to Nigeria and that was how I indicated interest alongside others.
“We wrote our names and prayed for them to come for us. Eventually they came and took us to a refugee camp. They asked us our experiences and we narrated everything. I showed them all the wounds on my body. They went back to the prison but the officer that maltreated us had run away.”
Life in refugee camp
It was in the refugee camp that she was treated like a human being since she left Nigeria. She said: “They fed us well. They fed us with chicken, meat, fish, salad and every good food that would help us to regain our health. They also brought medical doctors who took care of us. We were free to move around. They treated us well and for the first time, we felt like human beings once again. I spent two months in the refugee camp before we came back to Nigeria. I returned to Nigeria on December 12, 2017.”
Back to Nigeria
After four horrendous years in Libya, Adagbo was finally rescued and returned to her fatherland through the assistance of the IOM. She has already received the reintegration training being organised for the voluntary returnees by the IOM and is already waiting to be empowered by the IOM financially to start up a business, so that she could properly settle into the society.
“We were give N42, 000 at the airport. They asked us to drop our contact details and we did. We were invited for reintegration training at the Airport Hotel, Ikeja, and we were eventually trained. Right now, I am waiting for the IOM’s financial assistance to start up a business of my own.
“I went back to my village after we returned because I was very sick. I needed to treat myself first. For two years, I couldn’t see my menstrual period. I was taken to a trado-medical home where I was treated before I became well again. Up till now, I still have occasional mental seizure. The man in my village who introduced me to the journey had disappeared from the village. He was declared wanted but nobody has seen him up till now,” she stated.
Advice to potential irregular migrants
“I feel bad looking back at the whole thing. The Arab men dealt with me. If you tell people not to go, they will not believe you. I have advised government to shoot a video of people’s experiences in Libya and also in the desert and circulate for Nigerians to see. Maybe, they will believe after watching the video. It is better to remain here in Nigeria and sell sachet water than to go to Libya or Italy. Attempt to go to Libya or Italy through the desert will lead to either outright death or unending agony of pains.
“Finally, Libya is not a place to go. They will promise you to work as nanny or a sales girl in a super market, but when you get there, they will change it for you. It will become clear that you have just signed prostitution for the rest of your life. The prostitution that you could not do back in Nigeria, you will be forced into it in Libya or Italy, for those who managed to cross over to Italy.
“The woman who bought me in Libya threatened to kill me when I resisted prostitution. She told me that she would hand me over to an Arab man whom she would ask to kill me after he had had several rounds of anal sex with me.”