From baking dreams to trafficking hell: Teenage girl narrates how she was forced to become sex slave in Lagos

 A teenage girl has  shared her ordeal of being trafficked from Imo State and forced into prostitution.

16-year-old Chidinma, who told her story at the Lagos State Police Command, said she had been learning baking back home before she was allegedly lured to Lagos by 28-year-old Princess Andrew, with false promises.

According to the Delta State-born girl, “She never told me the work I was coming to do. She only said, ‘You are coming to serve in the office.’ Upon my arrival at a tall building inside Balogun market in Lagos Island, my madam removed my clothes and left me only with pants. There were other young ladies there. She told us to stand by the door and dragged men inside. She gave me a blue drug that made me disoriented. I slept with no fewer than 30 men daily. But sometimes, 60 men in one day.

“The men paid between N5,000 and N10,000 per session. But my madam usually gave me N1,000 or N1,500, which I used to buy food. Any time I told the men to use protection and they refused, they would report me to my madam. She would drag me into a room and beat me with an iron rod until I bled. She punched me severely in the stomach, knowing fully well that I had an operation.

“There was a time she punched my eye. For one week, I could not see with this eye,” she said, pointing to her left eye.

Her ordeal reached a breaking point on a night of extreme violence. Chidinma alleged her trafficker slammed her head against a wall after she refused to continue due to severe pain. She said: “That day, a man lodged me and another girl. I escaped from there because my madam threatened me with a knife because I complained of pains in my private part. I found my way to Costain, from where a man I met inside a bus took me to Surulere, where I met a woman selling pop corn that took me to Bode Thomas Division.

“When the DPO saw me, she said they should take me to the hospital for treatment. The DPO was surprised I was 15 years old. She said I looked 21. I am not the only girl working there. There are other girls there. I could not reach out to my people because I didn’t have a phone. Other girls’ phones were seized because they didn’t want them to reach out to their relatives.

“I am tired. I want to go back to my catering work. I am almost done with it,” she said.

But the accused trafficker, also from Delta State, strongly rejected the claims. Andrew admitted knowing the teenager while insisting  the girl understood the situation. She said: “I am not anybody’s madam. I work on my own as a sex-worker since February. Nobody works for me. I merely assisted the young woman by connecting her with accommodation after she arrived from Delta State.

“She lied about her age. She will be 21 years this year. I knew her back in Delta State when she was pregnant. She collected my money and I used my cane to wipe her.”

On his won part, the Commissioner of Police in Lagos, Tijani Fatai, told journalists, “The illicit operation came to light after a good Samaritan rescued a severely injured victim found wandering near the Surulere area of the state and brought her to the Bode Thomas Police Station.”

He added that the syndicate targets vulnerable minors between the ages of 13 and 15.

“While investigations indicate the cartel has trafficked about 30 girls in total, operatives have successfully arrested two suspects and rescued 13 underage girls,” the CP said.