Trafficker one Madam Success who lured four teenage girls from Akwa Ibom State into prostitution has been remanded.
The girls (names withheld) said to be looking for fees to return to school were lured by her from Akwa Ibom to Agbor in Delta State.
Madam Success was said to have told them that she had a job in a beer parlour for them, but on reaching there allegedly forced them into a brothel and made to sleep with at least five men a day.
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The girls between 13 and 15 years were rescued by the Anambra State Commissioner for Women and Children’s Welfare, Mrs Ify Obinabo, in Onitsha, where their trafficker was also arrested.
According to Chidimma Ikeanyionwu, Media Assistant to the commissioner, Obinabo, working with men of the police force, stormed a park in Onitsha on a tip-off and rescued the girls and also arrested the trafficker as they were boarding a bus to Delta State.
However, Madam Success was last Friday arraigned before the Children, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Magistrate Court in Awka, where she was denied bail and also remanded.
Narrating their experiences, the girls said: “Auntie Success told us that she has a job opportunity for us in Agbor, Delta State, where we will be selling drinks in a beer parlour, but on getting there, we discovered that it was prostitution work they brought us to do.
“The men pay the sum of N1,000 or N2,000 directly to our madam, who only gives us N400 every day for feeding. The direct payment to Madam Success made it difficult for us to have any cash at hand.
“These dresses (skimpy clothes) were bought for us from the proceeds which people pay to our madam, that was what she told us.”
The girls said they had made several attempts to escape but were always caught and punished severely.
“After the punishment, we were taken to a herbalist who forced us to take an oath that we would never run away or we would die.”
They lamented that it was in their quest to secure their school fees that they got lured into the act.