CNN has published a report of how
Nima Elbagir, one of its correspondents, went undercover in order to have a
first-hand experience of migrants who risk their lives to Europe through the
desert.
The report titled, ‘Don’t
struggle if you’re raped’, gives a chilling account of the activities of human
traffickers in Edo state.
The reporter started the journey
from Edo to Kano but pulled out before getting to the destination. The report
showed that the plight of over 5,000 Nigerians repatriated from Libya after
being sold into slavery, has not discouraged those interested in embarking on
the risky journey.
Below is the report:
In a lurid pink hotel room in Edo
State, southern Nigeria, a trafficker is arranging to smuggle us across the
continent to Libya — and ultimately Europe.
Fluorescent lights flicker
intermittently inside the hotel, which doubles as a brothel and serves as the
headquarters of tonight’s operation.
We are posing as would-be
migrants attempting to reach Italy with the help of our “pusherman” — one of an
army of brokers who work alongside smugglers on the Nigerian end of the migrant
route from Africa to Europe.
But as CNN revealed in an
exclusive report last year, they often never get beyond Libya.
When they arrive, they’re told by
smugglers they will need to pay thousands of dollars more to continue their
journey across the Mediterranean.
When the migrants fail to pay,
they are held in grim living conditions, deprived of food, abused by their
captors, and sold as laborers in slave auctions.
Footage obtained of a slave
auction in Libya — in which young men were sold by smugglers for as little as
$400 each caused international outrage.
The ‘VIP’ package
Three months later we wanted to
see whether that outrage had translated into action. CNN producer Leposo and I
went undercover as two wealthy women paying for the “VIP” travel package from
Nigeria to Europe, which includes a smuggler who will meet us in the northern
city of Kano and escort us across the border into Libya.
We gave scant detail about our
situation, saying only that we hoped to reach Italy and then travel from there
to London. The smugglers were mostly interested in our money, and asked few
questions.
In reality, our plan was to
secure a deal, set off from Auchi in the north of Edo State, and then quit the
journey as soon as we were safely out of the sight of smugglers.
Setting up the deal was
incredibly easy. Hassan, another CNN producer, worked undercover to negotiate a
deal with the pusherman in Ekpoma, also in Edo State.
Hassan negotiated 500,000
Nigerian naira for each of us, roughly $1,400.
The money was due on our arrival
in Libya. Hassan was the guarantor of our journey and would be held accountable
if we became frightened and backed out of the deal.
He was told by the pusherman that
the price to smuggle women is higher than for, say, small boys, because women’s
journeys are “even more difficult — they are molested there (in Libya).”
As part of our “VIP” travel
package, we were offered condoms for the journey. The pusherman later expressed
dismay that I hadn’t packed any myself.
“We give you contraception,” he
told me. “You need men in Libya to be kind to you. They will have things you
want. Do you understand?”
When I said “yes,” he laughed.
“Of course, you understand,” he
continued. “You don’t get something for nothing in this life. You’re lucky, the
men sometimes wait six months before they’re put on the boat to Europe.”
“Women though — if they’re like
you — sometimes you can be put on a boat the very next day.”
He has a warning for me: “Listen,
don’t struggle if you’re raped.”
Sexual abuse on the migrant route
Women and children routinely face
sexual violence, abuse and detention along the Central Mediterranean migration
route from North Africa to Italy, according to a 2017 UNICEF report.
“Nearly half the women and
children interviewed had experienced sexual abuse during migration — often
multiple times and in multiple locations,” said the report, which compiled
testimony from 122 migrants.
The attorney general of Edo
State, Yinka Omorogbe, is leading a taskforce that was set up last August to
combat modern slavery and human trafficking.
“We are actively involved in
investigation and have commenced several prosecutions,” she told CNN in a
written statement. “Like I have said, we have just started. We are awaiting a
state anti-trafficking law which will further strengthen us. We have a
destination and we’ll get there.”
“Trafficking in Edo is neither
solely about economic issues nor underdevelopment, but has deep cultural roots
that must be exposed, examined and pulled out.”
Meeting the pusherman
Within one day of Hassan securing
a deal, we met the pusherman at the hotel to embark on the first stage of the
journey.
Floral curtains adorned the
room’s barred windows, and not much was explained to us by the traffickers.
Very quickly we were taken to the local bus depot in Auchi, where the pusherman
flagged down a bus traveling north to Kano.
Public transport offers good
cover for smugglers in Nigeria. It’s far more difficult for authorities to keep
tabs on buses running through their usual routes, laden with people and
legitimate goods, then it is to chase down vehicles specially used by the
traffickers.
We squeezed down the aisles of
the busy overnight bus before the doors were locked shut from the outside as a
safety precaution against potential hijackers.
Once out of sight of the
smugglers, we disembarked on the outskirts of the city, where Hassan was
waiting for us. We were relieved to see him.
Had we kept going — as our
traffickers intended — we would have arrived in Kano 14 hours later. From
there, the plan was that a member of the smuggling network would have put us on
a second bus destined for Agadez in Niger.
From Agadez we would have
traveled to Sabha in southern Libya — a place where survivors of the slave
trade have previously told CNN they were marched off the bus at gunpoint, later
to be sold at auction.
Luckily for us, none of that is
our future. For others, it is a horror they cannot escape.
And as our rapid quest from
contacting a pusherman, to negotiating a deal, and setting off on a bus towards
Libya showed, it is a still a journey all too easy to make.
What a debasing, abusive, dehumanizing, disgraceful, and degrading venture headquartered by Edo State!!! Is there anything worth living for in Edo State?
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