Two nigerian love peddlers rescued. from Burkina Faso

Two teenage Nigerian girls, Rejoice Chioma Israel, 16,
(centre) and Rosemary Uchenna Emmanuel, 19 (right),
who were trafficked to Burkina Faso to become sex
workers in the country have been rescued, PM News
reports.
The two girls left Nigeria on 11 July with a man
who promised to take them to Malaysia via
Burkina Faso for a better life. The trafficker
explained to them that they will be given fresh
passports and some vaccines in Burkina Faso
before proceeding to Malaysia for well paid jobs.
But once in Ouagadugu, the capital of Burkina
Faso, they were handed over to a Nigerian woman
called Onome who introduced them to
prostitution.
“The madam told us we will have to do ashawo
(prostitution) or pay her N1.2 million each to take us
back to Nigeria,” Rosemary said in an interview in
Lagos on Tuesday.
They refused and explained they were on their way to
Malaysia and were just making a brief stop in Burkina
Faso for new passports and vaccines.
“She invited bad boys to take us away to a village on
motorcycles,” Rosemary said.
It was at that time they were rescued by some people
who called an anti-human trafficking NGO founded by a
Nigerian and known in French as Association Nationale
de Lutte Contre le Traffic des Jeunes or the National
Association Against Trafficking of Young Persons (Lutra
– Jeunes).
During the rescue operation, Rosemary said, she was
pushed off the bike and sustained injury in her right
hand and right leg.
Before embarking on the journey, Rosemary and Rejoice
worked at a small restaurant in Port Harcourt away
from their families in Imo and Abia States.
They lived together and worked at the same restaurant
where they earned about N3,000 a month.
They were there for some months until one day, a man
visited the restaurant and told them about the well paid
new jobs in Malaysia.
They contributed only N5,000 each and were handed
over to the man’s brother who took them on the
journey. The journey from Port Harcourt to Burkina
Faso lasted about two days.
They were then handed over to the Nigerian woman
there who manages at least 30 other Nigerian girls with
some as young as 14 years old.
“They were deceived and trafficked from Nigeria with
the hope to secure manual work in Malaysia to better
their future,” said Ochuko Patrick Otoba (pictured left),
a Nigerian and President of Lutra-Jeunes, the NGO that
rescued them and brought them back to Nigeria on
Monday after two days on the road.
“But they were surprised to find themselves in Burkina
Faso, forced to take up prostitution as they new trade.
When they refused, they were maltreated and beaten up
with injury of irreparable degree,” he said.
Otoba, a human rights activist, said the number of
Nigerian girls who have become victims of human
trafficking across the borders of West African countries,
especially Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Burkina Faso is on
the rise.
“Enslaved, indebted, sold like donkeys, the young
victims are between the ages of 14 to 22 and they are
deceived by traffickers in Nigeria who are also
Nigerians,” he said.
He called on the Nigerian government to embark on
serious awareness campaign, rescue other victims in
Burkina Faso, build rehabilitation centres to house these
victims and begin empowerment projects for rescued
victims who are not educated but need skills to get
back into the society.
His own NGO, he said, has not received funding from
the government, and had been struggling to cope.