Edo State Migration Agency has intercepted and rescued a 14-year-old Sickle Cell patient and a 13-year-old girl being trafficked to Libya by a human trafficking syndicate.
Parading the minors (name withheld) before newsmen yesterday in Benin, the agency’s director-general, Lucky Agazuma, said it got information about the case, swung into action and intercepted them in Zaria, Kaduna State.
He said, “The question is, how would a sickle cell patient survive in the desert. The good news is that when we brought them back, they were smart enough to come back with some evidence of receipts from the transport companies they are using in this state to traffic minors abroad. Based on this evidence, we have already informed many transport companies to inform them that they shouldn’t be involved in this devilish act.”
Agazuma, who said the agency would not fold its arms and watch Edo children trafficked out of the country at a time the state government was spending billions of naira to ensure Edo children have access to quality education, noted that all suspects arrested in connection with the case would be prosecuted in line with the appropriate laws.
The DG urged members of the public to report any suspicious case of human trafficking to the agency and warned that, “If you’re a trafficker, be warned that we are very close to you. It is in your interest to leave Edo State.”
The 14-year-old Sickle Cell patient narrated how it happened in Pidgin:
“A boy in my area approached me and said he wants to take us to Libya from there to Europe. I told him I would first inform my mother, but he refused, saying that when I get there, I will call my parents to inform them. He told me that Italy is good and I will live a better life there. I told myself I would surprise my mother when I arrived in Italy.
“He took our photographs and sent them to someone, and returned to say we were good to embark on the journey. We later went home, took our bath, and he took us to Aduwawa Motor Park, where they bought us hijab clothes. They put us in a bus going to Kano.
“He said when we get to Kano, a man will call us and hand us over to the person who will take us to Libya, and he also gave us a number to call when we get to Libya,” the victim said.
She said when they got to Zaria, the mother of the boy who introduced us to the trafficker, called to say that his mother had been arrested after they didn’t see us for days. It was thereafter that they transferred money to them to start coming home.
One of the suspects, who identified herself as Comfort Etim, 49, said she was innocent of the children being trafficked; however, she said that the boy actually brought the girls to her daughter with the claim that they were his sisters and that he wanted them to be taken abroad.
Etim, who claimed she was never aware that the children were to be trafficked abroad, confessed that her daughter (who is at large) had so far trafficked six minors overseas.
In a related development, the agency paraded an 18-year-old girl, who was deceived into a salesgirl job in Lagos but was unfortunately trafficked to Mali.
Narrating her ordeal, Joseph Faith, said she was promised a salesgirl job in Lagos, but when they got to Lagos, the woman who took her from Afuze, Edo State, proceeded to Cotonou and from there to Mali.
She said: “They asked me to go to Lagos to meet a woman who owns a provision store owner to work with her as a salesgirl. We arrived in Lagos at night and slept in a hotel. The next morning, we took a vehicle to Cotonou, where we slept because we arrived after 6 pm.
“I then asked her: ‘You told me we are going to Lagos, but we have passed there.’ She told me I shouldn’t worry and that we will get there. She then handed me over to a driver who took me to Mali.
“I arrived at Mali around 10 pm; they took me to a woman. When we arrived, what she told me I would be doing differed from what I saw. The woman used girls for prostitution.
“So, I told the woman I can’t do it and wanted to return home. The woman told me that before I could return home, the woman in Nigeria needed to bring another person to replace me. I was there for three weeks. I was starved. That was when I ran to the police station to report, and the police put me in a vehicle and took me back to Nigeria,” she said.
Asked how she survived the three weeks she spent in Mali, she answered: “It was not easy for me. Since I refused to do it (prostitution), she refused to feed me. So, I usually come out at night, and people give me money. This is how I survived. I met many girls there, but the woman didn’t allow them to interact with them.”
