Voodoo rituals, near-drowning in the
Mediterranean, abortions: Spanish police
recounted Wednesday the harrowing
experiences of young Nigerian migrant girls
forced into prostitution in places like
Benidorm and eventually rescued.
Authorities detained nine members of a
trafficking group that used illegal migration
routes to bring them from their home country to
Spain. It was headed by three women of
Nigerian origin, police said in a statement.
The victims, all poor, were approached " very
young" with promises of a good job in Europe ,
although police did not specify their ages.
They were then submitted to voodoo rituals
threatening terrible consequences to them and
their families if they disobeyed the organisation,
police said, before undertaking a gruelling trip to
Europe via Niger and Libya .
Smugglers paid by the group then took them
across the Mediterranean to Italy in rickety boats
along with scores of other migrants.
"Two of the victims of this organisation had
to be rescued by a rescue boat after the
boat in which they were travelling sank in
the Mediterranean, with various (other)
immigrants drowning, " police said.
Once in Italy, members of the organisation took
them out of migrant detention centres where
they had been housed and they travelled to
Spain by plane, using ID belonging to other
women of Nigerian origin living legally in the
country.
Once in Spain, they were instructed to ask for
asylum so as to avoid potential deportation.
They were told they owed the organisation
between 40,000 and 45,000 euros ($42,000 and
$47,000), police said, and forced into
prostitution in the northern town of Bilbao and
the holiday resort of Benidorm in the east.
"They had to go and prostitute themselves
every day and couldn't come back until the
early hours of the morning, after more than
14 hours... regardless of the inclement
weather or their own health, " they added.
Such was the fear of their bosses that one of the
victims who fell pregnant aborted straight away
and continued to prostitute herself so that they
would never know.
Police said the organisation had now been
dismantled, and seven victims were rescued.
It was unclear whether there were other girls
involved with the organisation.
The rescued girls are not alone, with the
International Organization for Migration (IOM)
estimating that of the thousands of Nigerian
women arriving on Italian coasts, 80 percent are
victims of trafficking.
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