Duped or spun with juju: how sex trade traffics Nigerian women
BENIN CITY, NIGERIA - She thought she was leaving Nigeria to work at a mobile phone shop in Mali to save money for university. Instead Blessing was forced into
International
2026-07-232026-07-23By Correspondent
BENIN CITY, NIGERIA – She thought she was leaving Nigeria to work at a mobile phone shop in Mali to save money for university. Instead Blessing was forced into prostitution at 16 before escaping with four other women three months later. “They said, ‘There is no boutique or phone plaza, it’s ashawo,’” she said, using the local Pidgin term for sex work.
AFP met Blessing at a Lagos bus depot on her way back to reunite with her family in Cross River state in the southeast of the country. The teenager is just one victim of a huge flow of trafficked women tricked or forced into prostitution by poverty along west African migrant routes that go all the way to Europe. Many are trapped by dubious “debts” imposed by brothels – while others feel chained by “juju” curses put on them by pimps.
Even those who get away often face resentment from their own families because they are no longer sending money home. It was on Valentine’s Day that a man promised Blessing work at the phone store in Mali. It took a week for her and the other women travelling with her to realise they had been lied to, when they were already close to the Mali-Guinea border.
