One Human Trafficking Story Too Many...

LUCKY, THE UNLUCKY ONE.

A Trafficking Story Written By

Moses A. Unongu

My name is Lucky Omoregie. I am eighteen years of age and the last child in the family of four. My parents, Mr. and Mrs. Omoregie got divorced while I was still in my mother’s womb, so, I hardly know the man that calls himself my father. I was brought up single handedly by my mother who hardly talks about issues concerning my father. At some point, mum insinuated that dad might have died since he has not bothered to pay us a visit and at least see how I have grown to become. And honestly, I believed her. What on earth would make a man turn his back on his family for over seventeen years? A family with a mother so loving and caring, and four poverty stricken but promising children? It beats my imagination till this day.

Mama Rebecca, as my mother is fondly called in our Uli community of Imo State, squeezed water out of stone to see us through school, though partially. Rebecca my elder sister went on to marry shortly after her Junior School Certificate Education. My only brother, Onyeka, about 21, left Uli to Makurdi in company of an uncle who sells motor spare parts. Onyeka is to go there and learn the spare part trade so that he could be on his own later in life. I was left with mum alongside my immediate elder sister who is about two years older.

As the baby of the house, I was fortunate enough to go beyond elementary school. Being a bright kid in primary school, I earn a partial scholarship to study at a prestigious missionary secondary school in Owerri, the Imo state capital city. And because I was still very young then, just 10, I was handed over to an uncle who lives in Owerri for guardianship. This was in 1993. However, Ifeanyi my uncle and supposed caregiver started molesting me sexually.

At the age of 12, I had grown into a big girl with all the features of a complete woman; I even started menstruating. Being a bachelor, Ifeanyi took advantage of my naivety and frailty. While I was sleeping at night, he would tiptoe to my bed side which is located at a corner in the parlour of his two room apartment and fiddle with my breast and dip fingers into my private part. Sometimes his activities on my body would wake me up but I still pretend as if I was asleep and swallow all the pain for fear of what Ifeanyi could do. He beats me at the slightest provocation. Once I confided in a friend and classmate whose parents happen to be our neighbors. Unfortunately for me, Nkem, the friend and confidant, went on to tell her mum everything I told her. When the whole news got to Ifeanyi’s knowledge, I received the beating of my life. 

Uncle Ifeanyi’s evil acts continued until he finally had carnal knowledge of me. That day, I was taking my bath when he came back from work and forced himself in. He defiled me. He had me to his satisfaction and left me in the pool of my own blood and throes of pain. The ugly incidence is still fresh in my memory and will remain there for a very long time.

Uncle Ifeanyi continued having sex with me for the next three years, getting me pregnant seven times and forcing me to have abortions. I traveled home during vacation to stay with and assist my ailing mother, but I could not even contemplate telling her about my experience in the hands of uncle Ifeanyi for reasons I cannot explain. To cut a very long and ugly phase short, I wrote my Senior School Certificate Examinations, which was the only thing keeping me with Ifeanyi, and happily left the nightmarish abode.

By this time, my elder brother, Onyeka, who was in Makurdi had relocated to Lagos where he had set up his own spare part business. Though Onyeka was still struggling to find his feet in a very competitive spare part market, I took off to Lagos to stay with him with the hopes of furthering my education to university level. On my way to Lagos from Owerri, I got acquainted with a lady in her late twenties, by name Janet, who told me in the vehicle that she just came into the country from Libya a few days ago. She claimed she run chains of boutiques in Tripoli and she was in the country to employ girls that she would take to Libya to help her out in her ever expanding business.

At first I was not moved by the so called employment opportunity Janet indirectly presented, but when I thought of my ailing mother and how Onyeka’s spare part business is not productive as expected, I decided to give Janet a try. But I insisted that we see my brother and seek his permission before anything. On reaching Lagos, I gave Janet Onyeka’s address which was scribbled on paper for me by an uncle in the village, and with it, we both traced him to his spare part shop at Alaba.

Onyeka gave the nod and all necessary documents were prepared and paid for by Janet, with the initial agreement that, I would pay her back by way of working for her for free in one of her boutiques in Libya for six months before being on her payroll. This I gladly accepted and off we went, by road, to Libya. How foolish I was.

On reaching Libya, all my travel documents were seized by Janet. I met thirteen girls whom I thought were employees in Janet’s boutiques. There was also this tall, heavily built and fierce looking man whom I greeted but only frowned and sized me for a while before pointing to a room where I would stay. The brothel-like environment casted doubts in my mind about claims of boutique business, but I waited a little while to clear my doubts, hopefully.

My doubts were unfortunately confirmed when, later that night the fierce looking man who allocated the room to me came in and informed me that the room is actually his, and that as a new comer into their kind of business, I had some initiations to undergo. When I sought to know the kind of business he was referring to, he bluntly told me that my job with them is a very simple one; that I would follow any Libyan that I am asked to follow and be nice to them and in return, I will be treated nicely. He said the Libyans have a strong appetite for sex and we are only helping to satisfy their urge. He went on to warn me that any protest or resistance on my part shall be met with decisive and even fatal consequences. When I told him that I was in Libya for boutique business, he laughed hysterically and ordered me to take off my clothes for the initiation process immediately. He rough handled me, raped me, and bruised me.

The incidence that night marked the beginning of a life of sexual exploitation and bondage for nine hard months until respite came. In February 2008, the Libyan authorities raided brothels across the country and Janet’s brothel was not spared. We were all deported back to Nigeria, about three hundred of us, and handed over to the Nigeria Immigration Service at the Muritala Mohammed International Airport Lagos. We were all processed by the Immigrations and when I had the opportunity to be heard, I told them everything, the truth.

The Immigrations handed us over to some government officials whom we later got to know that they were the Anti-human Trafficking Agency of the Federal Government known as NAPTIP. Janet was charged to court alongside the fierce man that raped me; whose name I was told is Daniel. I testified with other girls against them and they were convicted as charged. They are both serving different jail terms in a Nigerian Prison. With the help of NAPTIP, I am now running an undergraduate programme in a Nigerian Polytechnic. I thank God for my life, and for bringing NAPTIP to the rescue.

I have since gathered the pieces of my life and moved on. However, the scars are still there and I sincerely hope to save a soul with it in the near future as the trafficking trend seems to be on the increase.