Monday, 1 March 2021

I was promised Europe but ended up doing sex work in Libya, says trafficking victim

 


Frasanna Adejoke, an alleged victim of human trafficking, has narrated how she was taken to Libya for prostitution despite being initially told she would be going to Europe.

Adejoke spoke on Monday while testifying in a case of human trafficking levelled against her at a federal high court in Ibadan, Oyo state.

She claimed that one Ayomide Philips deceived her to travel to Libya for a job and even encouraged her to steal from her employers.

“In February 2016, Philips told me that she could facilitate my successful immigration to Europe and make my living there,” Adejoke said.

“She even took me to her mother who advised me to pay her daughter’s charges promptly. Firstly, I paid Philips the N10,000 charge she requested from me and on May 1, 2016, we left Ibadan for Kano.

“We travelled through Niger to Agadez, on and on we went until we got to Tripoli in Libya, where she introduced Abora, her Arab agent, to me.

“Philips never gave me anything from all the money I made for working because they usually give the money to her. She also did not tell me why she took me to Libya and not Europe as she earlier promised.

“Though Philips and Abora first took me to a place where I worked as a househelp for three months and they gave her an equivalent of N180,000 as my wage.

“I was, however, dismissed as a housemaid, when I stole some money there. I did so because Philips had advised me to steal anything I find precious to me and that such opportunities were rare.

“At the prostitution joint, Philips received an equivalent of N200,000 from them as my wage and so was the case at the other places where I worked.

“However, I was deported on April 25, 2017, when the Libyan police raided my prostitution joint.”

After her testimony, S.A. Langryi, counsel to the National Agency for the Prohibition and Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), asked the court for an adjournment to enable him present more facts.

Justice Patricia Ajoku then adjourned the case to March 23 for further hearing.

- THECABLE

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