Under-Aged Girls Deceived Into Prostitution As They Tried To Pay Their School Fees

Four girls who were reportedly looking for money to go back to school have supposedly been seduced into prostitution by One Madam Success.

The girls (names withheld) were lured from Akwa Ibom to Agbor in Delta State by Madam Success, who claimed to have a job for them in a beer parlour. However, the girls (names withheld) claim that they were put in a brothel and forced to sleep with at least five men every day.

The girls, who are believed to be between the ages of 13 and 15, were saved by Mrs Ify Obinabo, the Anambra State Commissioner for Women and Children’s Welfare, in Onitsha, where their trafficker was also apprehended.

According to Chidimma Ikeanyionwu, Obinabo’s media assistant, the commissioner raided an Onitsha park on the basis of a tip-off to rescue the girls and arrest the trafficker as they boarded a bus for Delta State.

According to a press release from Ikeanyionwu, Madam Success was arraigned before the Children, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Magistrate Court in Awka on Friday. There, she was denied bail and remanded in custody.

While 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 claimed they had made numerous efforts to flee but were always caught and harshly punished.

“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 said.

They bemoaned the fact that they had been deceived into the act while trying to pay for their school fees.