YOU ARE LOOKING AT A TEENAGE SEX SLAVE IN ITALY

Today 5000 girls, some as young as 12, are exported into prostitution in Italy.

They come from Benin City, Nigeria where they have been sold by their family – a mother, brother, sister, cousin. . . to human traffickers, with the promise of work in Italy.

This starts with a ceremony where a juju priest gives the girl a strong drug, strips her, cuts her pubic hair and makes her swear an oath of obedience – otherwise the curse will kill her.

She agrees to pay a debt of as much as 30.000€ to the trafficker for taking her on a 3000 km perilous life threatening passage through Libya and on in a rickety boat or rubber dinghy to Italy. She survives in the freezing wet misery of serial rape and being robbed during the journey.

She is promised a job – but not told that this is to be a prostitute.

On arrival she is taken in charge by a madam and forced to « service » up to 20 men day and night. If she refuses she is beaten, if she doesn’t hand over her meagre earnings she is beaten, if she tries to run away she is beaten, starved or killed…

She survives in terror and humiliation – frightened of her shadow, of the juju curse that can kill her. Knowing that over 3 to 7 years she must repay the cursed debt or her family will suffer.

You may have seen her one evening outside a Gas Station in a small Italian town, looking for a John.

Some escape and are taken into care for a  re-integration programme. A few make it back to Nigeria and a new life. Catholic volunteers try to bring them comfort and help to escape.

Most don’t make it.

The International Labour Organisation estimates that there are 21 million victims of forced labour, of which 4,500,000 are sex slaves. Increasingly girls and young women are profitable merchandise, for labour, prostitution, forced marriage, organ theft…

The Financial Times has launched an appeal with « STOP THE TRAFFIK » to help these victims of human traffickers.

YOU CAN HELP STOP THE ENSLAVEMENT OF OUR DAUGHTERS