Pregnant Nigerian woman, locked up for rejecting prostitution in Burkina Faso, regains freedom
By Olabisi Yakub
Ganiyat Samuel thought life smiled on her after self-acclaimed jewelry store owner, “Balikis,” told her of a greener pasture in faraway Burkina Faso.
Ganiyat’s dad passed on years ago and her mother, Olasunkanmi Afuwape, said she remarried to ease life’s burdens. The mother took Ganiyat and her brother to live with their grandma in Ikorodu area of Lagos state.
Ganiyat had sweet dreams of managing a fashion shop and then using the accruing cash to boost her tailoring business.
“Balikis came to me and said that I would make more money as a fashion designer if I travel outside Nigeria,” Ganiyat, who took the offer without telling her mother, said.
Unfortunately for Ganiyat, Balikis’ promise was the bait to lure the unsuspecting woman into something she wouldn’t ordinarily do.
Balikis is actually a woman trafficker. By the time Ganiyat got to know that, she had been tricked into travelling to faraway Ouagadougou chasing dreams that just weren’t there.
Ganiyat later learned she’ll get paid only if she allowed randy men take turns to gratify their lusty desires on her.
Balikis made the offer too sweet to turn down. She arranged Ganiyat’s documents to douse existing doubts. It was also an all-expense paid trip to Ouagadougou.
“I told her that I had no passport, but she said that she would take care of it,” Ganiyat said. “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.” That was the moment Ganiyat’s dreams degenerated into harrowing nightmares.
“I refused and she locked me in a room.”
She remained in detention until she made her first friend in Burkina Faso – another Nigerian who was tricked into the same trap but who also refused to go into prostitution and was so locked up.
“When she brought another Nigerian a week later, I helped the girl escape and she alerted the police,” Ganiyat said.
“The police rescued us and arrested the woman.”
The authorities were then able to return Ganiyat and her new friend to Nigeria.
Four other Nigerian women who were found in the same predicament were returned to the country, the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) said in Ibadan, Oyo state, on Wednesday.
NIS state Comptroller, Innocent Akatu, said the girls spent three weeks in Burkina Faso. He said none of them told their parents where they were heading.
“These girls were told that they would be given lucrative jobs abroad; one of them (Ganiyat) was told that she was going to manage a jewelry shop owned by her trafficker,” Ataku said.
“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.”
Ganiyat and the five other returnees may have escaped the human-trafficking-prostitution ring, but several thousands of Nigerians are still trapped in the mess.
Six out of 10 people who are trafficked to the West are Nigerians. The stats does not include the figure dragged into prostitution in other African countries.
Nigeria is a source, transit, and destination country for women and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically conditions of forced labor and forced prostitution.
The government has pledged over $7 million in annual funds to the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) which works to arrest the menace.
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