Six Nigerian
women have been sent back to the country from the Burkina Faso where they were
allegedly taken to for prostitution 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, Punch News reports.
Akatu said
the girls refused to engage in prostitution in Ouagadougu, Burkina Fasso, and
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.
