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 molesting 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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