The experience of Ifekoya Adejoke is as harrowing as it is heart-breaking. Lured by a false promise of ‘greener pastures’ abroad, the young Nigerian ended up a merciless victim of human trafficking, chained to a bed in a dingy, dirty Libyan room and forced to sexually satisfy up to 30 men in a single night...
Adejoke, a Lagos indigene, explained
that an impoverished background led her to survive by hawking water as a young
girl before she becoming an apprentice hair stylist.
“When
I lost my dad, his family claimed my mum was responsible for his death,” the 21 year old
tearfully said, sharing her experiences at a popular church in Lagos.
“They left us with her and ever since
then, she has been the one catering for us.”
Aged 19, a middle-aged lady
walked into the shop where she was styling and approached her with an unusual
proposal. “She came to me and said there
was a country she was staying in and if she took me to that country, I would
make money and would be able to cater for my family.”
“My
happiness knew no bounds,” she recalled, her judgement veiled by the blind
promise of greener pastures. “I said,
‘Finally, an angel has come’. Unknown to me, she was a devil in human’s
clothing.”
Just one week later, without
even informing her mum or siblings, Ifekoya was in a vehicle with the mysterious
lady en route to Libya. “She said when we
got there, we would board a flight to Spain where I would start work as a stylist”.
The long journey by road through
the infamous Sahara Desert was nothing short of hellish. “We were seeing dead bodies strewn on the ground,” she reminisced,
shuddering at the grisly recollection.
“Even
the vehicle that was following us directly passed on top of a buried bomb; the
vehicle just exploded and everybody there died.” Ifekoya witnessed scenes far
too horrific to repeat as masked men attacked a vehicle close to hers, beating
the occupants to a stupor and raping the women inside.
Finally making it to Libya’s
capital city of Tripoli, Adejoke was taken by the woman to a duplex. The first
glimpse of her new home was a shock to behold. “I met five Nigerian girls there who were half-naked,” she stated. Smiling
wryly at her bewildered confusion, the woman said she would ‘explain everything
tomorrow’.
“The
following morning, when I woke up, she brought some underwear for me and said
these were the clothes I must use to work,” the young Nigerian narrated
to the sober crowd.
As realisation dawned to
what she had unknowingly entangled herself in, Ifekoya bluntly refused. “That afternoon, people said they wanted to
meet me because I was new but I protested,” she continued.
“So,
the woman went outside and brought a cane. They really beat me up until I was
very weak. She then took me to one of the rooms and tied me down there. She
tied my hands to the back of my head and tied my legs separately so that they
were open. That very day, 30 men used me in the room where I was chained.”
Shackled as a sex slave
alone in the dark, dirty room save for the ravenous men who forced themselves
on her, Ifekoya’s willpower slowly began wilting.
“After
two weeks, the other girls came to me and said that if I didn’t accept to do
this, she would tie me down for two years. When I knew the whole thing was like
that, I just accepted.”
Informed that she would have
to repay a total of $9,000 to the devilish lady to ‘cover the costs’ of her
travel to Libya, the young Nigerian prostituted for almost one year before
finally ‘earning’ enough to ‘buy’ her freedom.
However, as hope finally
beckoned that she could leave such hellish lifestyle, fate struck another
venomous blow. “Immediately I planned to
leave the place, I started falling sick – seriously sick.”
Nearly one year of sleeping
with multiple men on a nightly basis had taken its toll on her young body. “To my greatest surprise, my womb fell. I
had to be taken to the hospital where they operated on me to remove it.”
Feeble and practically
penniless, Ifekoya now faced the ominous challenge of making enough money for
the journey back to Nigeria. Her options were limited. “At the end of the day, I had no choice. I still had to resort to the
same thing to come back to Nigeria,” she admitted.
Eventually ending up in
another brothel, she began saving up for the return leg of her nightmare
journey. After encountering a fellow Nigerian prostitute who had a similar
story as a victim of deception and exploitation, the duo struck a strong
friendship and resolved to make the journey together.
At this point, they made
what turned out to be a life-changing discovery. “It was when we were in one of our friend’s houses that we were
introduced to Emmanuel TV,” she explained. “We started watching and praying along with it.”
Almost 2 years after her intrepid trip across the Sahara Desert, Ifekoya and her friend embarked
on the journey back to Nigeria. Inspired by the clips they had seen on Emmanuel
TV, the television station of controversial Nigerian pastor T.B. Joshua, they
decided to make The Synagogue, Church Of All Nations (SCOAN) their first port
of call.
After receiving prayer for
‘deliverance’ from the ‘spirit of prostitution’ and hearing of their sordid stories, Joshua decided to give the
ex-prostitutes N200,000 ($1,200) each to restart their lives.
“God
has kept me alive to pass this message across to the youth,” the young
Nigerian emotionally concluded, admonishing her age-mates not to fall prey to
the same tactics used to lure her into slavery.
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