It is always sad and shocking when we hear these stories, but unfortunately this is our reality.
Three Nigerians namely Olusoji Oluwafemi, 44, Johnson Olayinka, 45, andFlorence Obadiaru, 48, were jailed for 13 years collectively for human trafficking.
According to Daily Mail UK, an innocent 23-year-old Nigerian girl was conned into flying to Heathrow Airport on a bogus passport, with the promise of education, a job and new home.
When she got to London, she was raped, beaten and subjected to “Juju” ritual before being sent to Italy where she was to become a prostitute.
She swore an oath in the fetish ceremony that involved cutting her armpit and pubic hair and taking finger nail clippings.
On getting to Milan, Police discovered that she had a forged passport and sent her back to London where she was rescued by the police.
Police believe that close to all the 160 Nigerian victims rescued last years had been subjected to sinister rituals aimed at terrifying them into submission.
They revealed that many were taken to witchdoctors who cut them, rubbed black powder in their wounds and threatened them with death if they ran away.
Liam Vernon of the National Crime Agency (NCA) said, “This isn’t a phenomenon that is just affecting Britain, it is a Europe-wide problem. They are moving women around to avoid detection.
These rituals are simply a method controlling the women who are from a region where juju is not always seen as necessarily a bad thing.
But it is very powerful and there are very strong beliefs that you must adhere to what is said or very bad things will happen to you and your family.”
The 23-year-old girl who is poorly educated and spoke little English, volunteered to travel to London because her family had been suffering since her father’s death in 2008.
She was told that she must repay £40,000 by working in the UK and taken to a witchdoctor to pledge total obedience.
The arrested victims were in contact with a woman who searches poor Nigerian villages looking for young women to exploit. The woman also supplied another crime gang which was caught last year. She is the centre of an international manhunt.
All 3 Nigerians were convicted of trafficking the woman for sexual exploitation, as well as arranging her transfer to Italy.
The mastermind Oluwafemi was sentenced to 6 and 1/2 years, Johnson who organised her fake passport was given a 4 and 1/2 years prison term, while Florence who kept the victim at her house before being sent off to Italy, was sentenced 2 years in jail.
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