Despite efforts by the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, NAPTIP, the Nigerian Immigration Service, NIS, and other security agencies in Nigeria, the trafficking of teenage girls to foreign lands and turning them to sex slaves has continued unabated.

Young, impressionable girls, often times, below the age of 18 continue to fall victims to the activities of human traffickers who devise all sorts of means including promises of mouth-watering job offers in foreign lands to lure Nigerians girls into forced prostitution, not only in Europe and America but also in other African countries.

Last week, a video surfaced in TikTok of a young Nigerian lady appealing to Nigerians and the government to come to their rescue in Mali.

She showed a picture of some make-shift squalid shanties in a forested area, where they were quartered by their ‘master,’ while scores of men came to have sex with them against their wishes.

She displayed a picture of a pregnant lady who is already mentally destabilized due to long months of abuse and hardship, appealing for help to save the woman.

According to the lady in the video, not only were they subjected to forced prostitution, their lives were equally in danger as criminals could invade the place and kill them at will.

Describing the place they live, said: “This is the place we crossed borders to stay in Mali. Look at where we are. This place is a forest; there is no house around except these shanties.

“You can’t find anybody around except us that they dumped here. Our lives are equally in danger. They can come in here and kill anybody and go away without any issue.

“Any lady or girl that comes back to Nigeria from these African countries with money and tells you she is doing business is telling lies. It is a big lie.

“The boys and big ‘madams’ are using our girls to make millions and build mansions in Nigeria. They are crossing our girls to these African countries to make millions of Naira for them.

“When you get to this place, they will force you into prostitution and you must balance the expenses they claim they made to bring you over there, which ranges from N5 million and above before you can get your freedom.”

She shared the picture of mentally deranged pregnant young girl whom she alleged had paid her madam, over N2.5 million and is already stranded in Mali.

“She has no way to go back to Nigeria again and she is still hustling with her pregnancy. She has given so much money in millions to her madam. Nobody knows the whereabouts of her madam.

“She has disappeared with the money. Now the lady is stranded and not in her right senses.

“This is where they bring girls so that you can’t run away because this is like the middle of a thick forest. They are still bringing more girls as I make this video. They settle the Immigration officer at the borders.

“They will deceive the girls to lie to the immigration officers that they are going to do legitimate work, meanwhile they have another thing in their mind, which they will only reveal when you land in the country. Let our government do something,” she stated.

On how they were taken to the place, she said: “They will cook beautiful stories and paint beautiful pictures of life over here. What we do here is not what they told us that we were coming to do.

“Somebody like me, they told me that I was coming to do gold work. Others were told they were going to house-help jobs. But once they get here, they will give bags of condoms and before you finish paying your debt, you will have exhausted two Ghana-Must-Go bags of condoms.

“Our Nigerian women and men who are into this human trafficking business are very wicked. Look at where we live. What we see here is not what they tell us. They bring us here and force us into prostitution. We need help here,” she said.

She called on President Bola Tinubu to help bring them back to Nigeria, saying, “We need help here. Our lives are being wasted in Mali. The government needs to do something about our borders through which all these girls are taken out of Nigeria almost on a weekly basis.”

However, as Nigerians were still trying to get over the sordid video, a chilling account emerged of how the girls who were rescued from Cote d’Ivoire last week were being forced to sleep with at least 11 men each on a daily basis.

Last week, five young girls who were rescued from a human trafficking network in Cote d’Ivoire narrated their harrowing experiences to journalists in Lagos.

The victims, who spoke after their rescue and repatriation to Nigeria, recounted how traffickers deceived them with fake job offers in baking, hairdressing, clothing sales and other forms of menial jobs, only to force them into prostitution upon arrival in the West African country.

One of the victims, 17-year-old Benue girl, Monica Emmanuel, said she was introduced to a woman identified as Peace, who promised to secure a baking job for her in Abuja. She said she, alongside two other girls, were transported from Kaduna to Lagos, where another woman identified as Blessing informed them that the supposed job was actually in Côte d’Ivoire.

Monica said they were moved through several villages and remote bush paths before they eventually arrived at their destination. And it was only then they realised they had fallen into the hands of human traffickers.

“They locked us inside a room and warned us never to tell our parents or the police. Whenever our families called, they forced us to tell them that we were fine,” she said.

She disclosed that after one of the girls in their group reported the traffickers to the police in Lagos, their captors became more aggressive, confiscated their phones and threatened to sell them to other traffickers if they refused to comply with their instructions.

She said they were forced into prostitution, where they sometimes attend to between 10 and 11 men daily, while all the money generated was collected by their handlers.

“We even bought condoms with our own money. Every expense, including food, slippers and clothing, was deducted from what we earned. We were never allowed to keep any money,” she lamented.

Another 18-year-old Kaduna girl, Juliet Timothy, said she had completed training as a hairdresser before accepting what she believed was a genuine job opportunity in Abuja.

“My parents thought I was travelling to Abuja for work. We only discovered the truth after we got to Lagos,” she said.

Juliet narrated that upon arrival in Côte d’Ivoire, the traffickers instructed them to act as if everything was normal whenever they spoke with their families.

“When I spoke with my mother, I started crying. They immediately seized the phone from me and forced me to record a smiling video so they could convince my family that I was safe,” she recalled.

She further revealed that the traffickers demanded millions of Naira before they would grant them freedom and repeatedly threatened to sell them if they refused to continue engaging in prostitution.

Determined to escape their ordeal, Monica and Juliet secretly reached out to sympathetic Nigerians and officials, who directed them to a human rights office in Côte d’Ivoire.

Their rescue was eventually secured through a coordinated intervention initiated after the Lagos Zonal Command of NAPTIP contacted the founder of the Global Anti-Human Trafficking Organisation (GAHTO), Prosper K. Michael, for assistance.

The operation was carried out in Djiboroso, Côte d’Ivoire, by GAHTO’s representative in the country, Oluwaseun Odusanya, with the support of Baro Séri of the Sous-Préfecture de Djiboroso, Commune de Kani, in the Worodougou Region.

The officials ensured the victims’ safety before handing them over to Kouadio N’Guessan, Educateur Specialisé and Director of the Centre Social de Tengrela in the Bagoué Region of Côte d’Ivoire.

Odusanya, who also serves as Chairman of the Nigerian Community in the Bagoué Region, subsequently facilitated their safe return to Nigeria.

In the same vein, the other three victims, including Rejoice Emmanuel, 25; Joy Teseh, 24 and Monica Tamah, 38, all from Benue State, also shared similar experiences.

They narrated how they were lured with promises of jobs, including opportunities to sell clothes, but were instead forced into prostitution for periods ranging from three to six months.

The three women were rescued in Boundiali, also located in the Bagoué Region of Côte d’Ivoire, through another coordinated operation involving GAHTO and local authorities before being processed for repatriation to Nigeria.

One of the victims disclosed that she attended to as many as 10 clients on busy market days, while another said she generated millions of CFA francs for her traffickers without being allowed to keep any of the proceeds.

“I got tired. I begged the police for help because I could no longer continue,” one of the victims said.

Another victim, a 38-year-old mother of five, appealed to the Nigerian government to assist her in rebuilding her life through a legitimate business after her return home.

The survivors urged authorities to intensify efforts against human trafficking syndicates operating across Nigeria and neighbouring West African countries.

“They also warned young people to be cautious of enticing job offers promising quick employment outside their states of residence or abroad.”

Their testimonies underscore the persistent activities of trafficking syndicates that continue to prey on vulnerable Nigerians through deception, coercion and sexual exploitation, despite sustained efforts by law enforcement agencies and civil society organisations to combat the crime.

Experts are of the view that apart from the prevailing economic hardship in the country, the activities of some corrupt security agencies are also aiding the menace.

As suggested by the lady in Mali, they also want the government to beam a close searchlight on the security personnel at borders.

A migration expert, Osita Osemene, believes that if there are jobs in Nigeria, many young girls and boys would resist being lured with job offers abroad.

“But when they are willing to work and can’t find any job in the country, they would jump at job offers outside Nigeria without thinking twice,” he told DAILY POST.

He urged the government to fix the country’s economy, noting that doing that, as well as securing the lives and property of citizenry were the only way to halt Nigerians from moving in droves not only to Europe and America but to even smaller African countries in search of better life.

“The truth is that many of them were deceived. Yes, you could say it was easy to deceive them because things are not good in the country, but let us bear in mind that they were not given the true picture of the situation over there and that is always the situation.

“They won’t tell you the truth because if they do, you may not want to go and these are traffickers who live off these migrants.

“So, I think our leaders just need to fix this country and all this nonsense will stop naturally.

“In the meantime, the government should also pay close attention to the activities of personnel at our borders. They should do their job properly.

“If they do their job the way it ought to be, these traffickers won’t have any escape route but because they are heavily compromised, it becomes very easy for these traffickers to cross the borders with these young girls often,” he stated.