When 26-year-old Abigail Olori
met Alhaja Latifat and her
husband three years ago, she felt
she had met an angel in human
form who would turn the odds of
her life for good. Considering the fact that she had
lost her parents and was saddled
with the responsibility of catering
for her siblings, she jumped at
the offer to travel to Italy to work
as an auxiliary nurse for the couple. Unknown to her,
however, she was making the
biggest mistake of her life. A look into the eyes of the frail
looking Abigail revealed misery,
pains and betrayal that she has
been subjected to in the last
three years. Coughing
intermittently and straining herself to be audible, she
narrated her ordeal in the hands
of her traffickers. “I met Alhaja Latifat and her husband in 2013 when
they came to Nigeria; then
I was 23-years-old. I knew
them via a relative of mine,
Rofel, when I was residing
in Bayelsa with my siblings. Rofel invited me to
Lagos; it was during the
visit to Lagos that I was
introduced to Alhaja Latifat
who promised to take me
to Italy”, she stated. “Before the journey, they
said they wanted me to
become an auxiliary nurse
for them in Italy but
unfortunately I found
myself in Libya. They took me via the desert. We
were about 30 that were
taken to Libya from
Nigeria. “Since I didn’t have
parents, I was only able to
raise N10, 000 which the
alhaja claimed was for the
passport she procured for
me. The agreement was that I will work and pay her
N2.4 million once I get to
Italy which included the
amount she spent to take
me abroad and the return
on her investment. “Before we left Nigeria,
they took us to a native
doctor called Ewe in
Abeokuta, Ogun State
where we were made to
swear an oath. It was after the oath that we were
taken to Libya instead of
Italy. “Initially when I got to Libya
and found out that my
responsibility was to abort
pregnancies for young
girls, I refused but Alhaja
Latifat and her husband locked me up in a room
and beat me severely with
a mop stick I had no option
but to bulge. Each time I
refused to perform abortion
for any of the girls, they will lock me up and beat me. “That was how I started
assisting them to terminate
unwanted pregnancies for
the young girls who were
working as call girls for
Alhaja Latifat. “We had girls within the ages of
10-15 working as call girls,
sleeping with all sorts of
men unprotected. Most of
the girls were forced to
sleep with elderly men as old as 60 years-old. Some of these girls
confessed to me that they
were hairdressing
apprentices and fashion
designers before they were
deceived to come to Libya to work as prostitutes. Any
of the girls who refused to
work, they will beat her up.
Some of the girls who
attempted to escape got
into more trouble as they were resold to other
traffickers in Libya. “My main responsibility
was to carry out abortion
for the girls forced into
prostitution. By my
calculation, I would have
aborted 320 pregnancies in the process. They built
instrument which I used to
perform the abortion on the
girls. If a pregnancy was
about a month, and the girl
in question notified Alhaja Latifat about the
development, the Alhaja
Alhaja will not allow me to
abort the baby till the
pregnancy was about four
or five months old. Apart from carrying out
abortions, I also performed
the job of a physician to
the girls. “They had about
three houses which were
used as brothels to house the girls who worked as
call girls. I resided in one of
the brothels called New
York. The second was
called White House. I can’t
remember the name of the third one. “I worked for the alhaja for
about three years and I
was able to raise the
amount from the abortion I
was performing on the girls
and the money I got from my male friends who were
into armed robbery in
Libya. Like the call girls, I
was not allowed to operate
a bank account. Since I didn’t operate any
bank account, the money I
earned was kept with
Alhaja Latifat. Within two
years I was able to pay the
N2.4m agreed amount on the contract and also give
her N1.5M which I kept
with her as my personal
savings. Meanwhile, trouble started
after I demanded that she
gives me back my N1.5m
which was with her as I
wanted to return to Nigeria.
Immediately after I demanded for my money,
this strange sickness
started. I began to grow
thin and lose weight. And
then skin rashes began to
appear all over my body. Look at me I am now a
shadow of myself. I don’t
know what is wrong with
me. I feel very weak too. “I was rescued alongside
two other girls weeks after
Basirat and Omobolanle
were rescued through an
NGO, Alliance for Rights
Defender, owned by human activists and
lawyer, Mr. Ojay Akinwale.
Mr Akinwale has been the
one working with
operatives of the National
Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons
(NAPTIP). Since I was rescued and
brought back to Nigeria,
Alliance for Rights
Defender has been
instrumental to providing
medical care for me. I want to get well first and I
also want the Federal
Government to investigate
Alhaja Latifat, her husband
and others running this
human trafficking as a family business by taking
advantage of young girls
from indigent families”. Abigail
