LAST week, the Director General of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), Binta Adamu Bello, directed officers of the Counseling and Rehabilitation Department as well as operatives of the Intelligence and International Cooperation Unit (IICU) of the agency to immediately begin a comprehensive rehabilitation procedure and interview session with the rescued victim of human trafficking, Miss Odunayo Eniola Isaac, who arrived in Nigeria from Iraq recently. The distraught victim had posted a viral video on the internet detailing the serial abuses her employers had subjected her to in Baghdad, Iraq. NAPTIP had, in collaboration with civil society organisations and foreign agencies, facilitated Isaac’s return to the country following media reports of her ordeal at the hands of her Iraqi taskmasters.
Speaking while receiving the victim at the agency’s headquarters in Abuja, Bello said: “I must say that she had a close shave with death, and we are all happy that she is alive to tell her painful story. On January 22, 2023, she left Nigeria and arrived in Baghdad, Iraq, the next day. She was received at the airport by officials of WB Warani Manpower, the company she was registered to work for. She was taken to hospital on January 24, 2023 to certify her medically fit for the job she would be assigned to. Her Iraqi agent, Alhaja Shakirat Yusuf, whom she knew only as Mama Uganda, came to WB Warani Manpower to officially sign her in on January 25, 2023. She was then assigned to work for an Iraqi family of eight (six children and two parents) on January 29, 2023. Her work hours spanned about twenty hours a day, with little or no rest.
“According to Miss Odunayo, after one month of work, she requested her salary, but her madam explained that because of the high commission in paying money into Nigerian accounts, she would be paid every two months. She agreed, but after four months when she still hadn’t been paid, her ordeal began when she dared to request payment. Her phone was confiscated to prevent communication with her family. Each time she asked for her remuneration or spoke about it, she was beaten, resulting in bleeding and bodily injuries. On one occasion, her madam bound her hands and feet and threw her into a dog’s cage until 3 a.m. before releasing her to continue with her work.
“Because of her level of exploitation and trauma, I have directed the relevant departments and operatives of the agency to immediately begin profiling, interviewing and implementing a comprehensive rehabilitation process. This is to enable the agency to assess her medical status, the nature of assistance and skills needed, and to design a plan to reunite her with her family. Additionally, NAPTIP will take the necessary steps to ensure justice for her. It is also important to advise our youths and parents to be cautious and think twice before pursuing any seemingly lucrative job offers abroad. Over the past few months, we have intercepted scores of youths, mostly girls, at various points of exit across Nigeria, and their destinations have included volatile countries in the Middle East.”
It is indeed distressing that in spite of the abundant resources that Nigeria is blessed with, Nigerian youth continue to be subjected to harrowing experiences outside the shores of the country. Week in, week out, Nigeria’s young men and women are trafficked abroad by criminals who prey on their gullibility and that of their parents and guardians, promising them El Dorado abroad but actually intent on using them as sex or domestic slaves. In the case of Ms. Odunayo, her viral video, the visible scars on her body, including her scarred face, swollen lips and heavily bandaged hands reflect an ordeal that no human being should be subjected to in this day and age. She was treated worse than any animal should by her captors who posed as employers and rode on the racism and anti-Black sentiments and attitudes prevalent in the Middle East. To hear many people in that corner of the world speak, it is as if Nigerians and other Africans are a lower specie of humanity about whom no mention of such niceties as dignity or human rights should be made. There are countless numbers of Africans in the Middle East, the Arab world and elsewhere who are being worked to death by their so-called employers who, even when the stories of their dehumanised captives get into the public space, are not subjected to the legal process in those countries for appropriate punishment.
This is, no doubt, a sad and sobering story. Parents should be wary of neighbours or acquaintances advertising good job opportunities abroad. Oftentimes, these so-called job offers are open invitations to slavery and its horrors. Indeed, the time has come that people in neigbourhoods should report such people traffickers to the security agencies. Stories abound of Nigerians and other Africans treated worse than animals abroad, particular in Arab countries. It would not be out of place to say that those people are extremely mean, especially to Black people, but ultimately it is the political leadership of African countries that must be blamed for the shameful ordeal of their citizens home and abroad. Nigerians would hardly be so shamefully treated abroad if their own government had treated them with dignity in the first place through good governance.
In the case of Citizen Odunayo Isaac, she is only alive by divine providence. Hear her: “I thank God that I am alive. I wouldn’t wish my worst enemy to go through what I experienced. I never thought I could survive the painful ordeal.” The government must address poverty and ignorance, the root causes of the ordeal of citizens like Ms. Odunayo. It is sad that Nigerian youths are willing to risk life and limb over non-existent or demeaning jobs abroad. We appreciate the efforts of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), Nigeria Intelligence Agency (NIA), the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), embassies, Nigerian missions abroad, NAPTIP, the media, and other stakeholders for the return of the victim to Nigeria’s shores. We hope that the government will give her and other victims the support needed to be back on their feet. Ultimately, however, we hope that governments at all levels will collaborate to make life much more clement in Nigeria while hunting down people traffickers and treating them like the criminals that they are.
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