(Adds Italian govt figures and comment in paragraphs 21-24)<\/p>\n
By Tom Esslemont<\/p>\n
CATANIA, Italy, Sept 29 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – When Nigerian
\nteenager Beauty arrived in Sicily after crossing the Mediterranean from
\nNorth Africa last year, she had only hours to phone the man who trafficked
\nher – or risk lethal repercussions for family members back home.
\nBefore her journey through Niger to Libya, a spiritual priest practicing a
\nform of black magic known in Nigeria as “juju” had forced her to swear an
\noath of obedience to her trafficker.
\nThe threat of a “curse” if she broke her oath and the possibility of
\nviolence by her traffickers at home in Benin City, a southern Nigerian hub
\nfor human trafficking, were enough to trap her into sex slavery.
\n“If I had reported him to the police, my family would have been in great
\ndanger,” said Beauty, 19, fiddling with black-and-blond braids as she
\nrecalled the events of last summer.
\n“At the (migrant) camp a man came to pick me up in a car. I got into the
\ncar and I was taken away.”
\nBeauty, who uses a pseudonym and declined to reveal her full name, is one
\nof around 12,000 Nigerian women who reached Italy by sea over the past two
\nyears, official data shows.
\nThat’s a six-fold increase over the previous two-year period, with the
\nmajority – almost 80 percent – of the young women victims of trafficking,
\naccording to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).
\nYoung, exhausted and vulnerable, many victims report being told that
\nprostitution is the only way to repay hefty debts ranging from 25,000 to
\n100,000 euros ($28,000-$112,000) to their traffickers, Italian charities
\nsay.
\nFear plays a large part in the juju rituals, with pubic hair, fingernails
\nand blood collected from the victim as she is made to swear never to
\nreport her situation to the authorities, rights groups say.
\nIn some cases, fearing the juju “spell” may be turned on them and they may
\ndie, Nigerian parents insist their daughters obey their traffickers,
\ntestimony from Italian court documents shows.
\nBeauty only learned later that she had been trafficked – and that the man
\nwho had brought her to Europe, a friend of her father’s, now demanded she
\npay back 25,000 euros ($28,000) by working as a prostitute.
\n“My pimp was a nice man. I think he was a good man,” she told the Thomson
\nReuters Foundation in the security of the safe house where she now lives.
\nBut as she provided sex services for dozens of Italian clients in a town
\nin southern Italy, a tyranny of abuse unfolded, she said.
\n“The man pimped me. His girlfriend beat me.”
\n“OUT OF CONTROL”
\nWith numbers of Nigerians rising in Sicily, prostitution is a thriving
\nbusiness, campaigners say – though nobody knows exactly how many women end
\nup plying their trade on the streets.
\nClose to the vibrant cultural centre in the island’s southeastern port
\ncity of Catania, six or seven African women posed outside shuttered-up
\nshops at night as teams from a local charity, the Penelope Association,
\noffered support and advice.
\n“The women need help to reintegrate in society,” said Oriana Cannavo, head
\nof the charity’s Catania branch, nodding towards a woman in a short
\nturquoise dress sauntering up and down the pavement.
\nThe offer of support is a delicate one, Cannavo said, because the girls
\nare already in the psychological clutches of their traffickers.
\nThe number of Nigerian women arriving in Italy is accelerating –
\ncomplicating the task of law enforcement agencies determined to keep tabs
\non the location of pimps or their female brokers known as “madams”.
\nDozens of Nigerian men and women have been arrested in Italy in recent
\nmonths on trafficking related charges, prosecutors say.
\nMore than 13,500 unaccompanied minors – some from Nigeria – were “reached”
\nby social workers in 2013 and 2014, with around 9,200 taken into Italian
\nstate care, according to a report commissioned by the interior ministry.
\nThe Italian government did not respond to repeated requests for the number
\nof adult victims of trafficking supported or granted asylum.
\n“Female victims of violence are granted special protection similar to that
\naccorded to refugees,” the Italian interior ministry said on its website.
\nThe new arrivals of trafficking victims are stretching the workload of the
\nIOM, the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) and local charities, aid workers say.
\n“It is reaching a stage where it is out of control,” said Margherita
\nLimoni, a legal advisor with the IOM in Catania.
\nThe number of Nigerian women arriving in Italy has almost doubled in the
\npast year, surpassing 6,300 in the first eight months of 2016, up from
\n3,400 for the same period last year, according to the IOM.
\nUnaccompanied children from Nigeria – some as young as 10 or 11 – have
\nalso flocked to Italy. Around 1,700 arrived in the first eight months of
\nthis year, while 1,000 came during the whole of 2015, the IOM data shows.
\nPIMPS AS “BENEFACTORS”
\nAlthough minors are offered state protection, Beauty was not eligible for
\nthis as she was already 18, she said.
\nAfter running away from her pimp late last year, she fled to the local
\noffice of the Penelope Association, which found her a place in sheltered
\naccommodation late last year.
\nBeauty is one of 45 people the charity aims to support this year by
\nfinding them a place to live and employment in restaurants, well away from
\nthe preying eyes of traffickers, Cannavo said.
\nBut the assistance is not always accepted.
\nSeven of Beauty’s friends slipped back into prostitution out of fear of
\ntheir pimps, or loyalty, the teenager said.
\n“Many times the girls see their pimp as a benefactor who is trying to
\nimprove their lives,” said IOM’s Limoni, who briefs newly arrived migrants
\nabout the dangers of trafficking. “They trust them 100 percent.”
\nVictims are also put off from fleeing pimps by actual stories of families
\nbeing targeted or killed back in Nigeria – a reminder of the need to
\nfulfil their obligations or stick to their juju oaths, another
\nSicily-based campaigner said.
\nIf a girl breaks her juju oath then she loses the spiritual protection, or
\nso they believe, said Vivian Wiwoloku, president of the charity Pelligrino
\ndella Terra.
\n“There was one Nigerian girl some years ago who abandoned prostitution.
\nThen someone was really sent to her home in Nigeria to kill her brother,”
\nsaid Wiwoloku in his small office in the island’s main city of Palermo.
\nWiwoloku, also from Nigeria, said his charity work – helping more than 400
\nwomen abandon prostitution since 1996 – was not without its dangers. His
\ncar has twice been set on fire.
\n“When you try to help somebody not everyone will be happy,” he said.
\nThe IOM’s Margherita Limoni agreed that the strong spiritual and
\npsychological grip of Nigerian pimps, madams and traffickers makes it
\nharder to support the victims.
\n“The traffickers are getting smarter and smarter by the day,” she said.
\n($1 = 0.8901 euros) (Reporting By Tom Esslemont, Editing by Timothy Large;
\nPlease credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of
\nThomson Reuters, which covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, human
\ntrafficking and climate change. Visit news.trust.org)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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