Nigeria

For Precious and Osagie, life in Nigeria began to deteriorate when herdsmen started grazing their cattle on their crops. Tensions escalated into attacks between the herdsmen and the whole community and it was no longer safe for them to stay. Osagie decided to travel to Libya first through a friend who would sponsor him. Precious wanted to join him and met someone who told her she could work as a housemaid in Libya. The desert journey to Libya was enough to make them regret leaving.

Fighting broke out in Mary’s village in Nigeria. Her family were killed but she managed to escape. Then she met a woman who offered to take her to Europe to work as a housemaid. She would also be able to go to school there. Mary agreed and they set off on the journey. In the desert, soldiers shot at their car, it overturned, and many passengers were injured. They had to stay in hiding in a cave, with very little food and water. People became desperate with hunger and thirst. Finally, after ten days, another car came and picked them up.

Gloria lost her business in Nigeria and was being harassed by her creditors. A friend told her about a possibility to go to Europe to earn money, and they left with a smuggler. The journey through the desert was harsh, they were suffering from the heat and were hungry and thirsty. When they arrived in Libya, they realised the smuggler had cheated them. They were taken to a slave market and sold. Gloria never saw her friend again.

Favour was preparing for her wedding in her village in Nigeria when catastrophe struck, and she had to flee for her life. Her brother killed their stepmother in an argument about the wedding, the stepmother’s family blamed Favour for what happened and vowed to kill her in revenge. Favour saw no other solution than to escape. She had heard about possibilities to work in Libya and contacted a smuggler. The journey through the desert was a horrible ordeal.

Shola was unhappy with her life in Nigeria. She wanted to study and get a job, but when she finished secondary school, her family expected her to marry, have children, and be a housewife. She decided to go to Europe to realise her plans. A woman promised to take her there, and she departed with a group of girls. They had been promised the journey would be short and easy, but already the crossing of the hot desert to Libya was an ordeal.

At her school in Nigeria, Vera and her brother were being threatened by gangsters. The situation became dangerous, and her mother was very worried about her security. Vera felt she had no other option than flee from the country. She contacted a smuggler who would take her to Europe via Libya. She was surprised when the woman frankly suggested that she could earn money both in Libya and in Europe as a prostitute. Vera said she would not do such a thing, and the woman did not press the issue. When they arrived in Libya, she called her and told her that now, she must work as a prostitute to pay her debt.

Franca was in her early twenties and the time for her coming-of-age ceremony was approaching. In her tribe in Nigeria, girls are expected to undergo female genital mutilation as an initiation rite to enter mature womanhood. Franca did not want to be cut and she escaped from home. She went to the nearest city, but then she decided to go to Libya to look for work. Having arrived in Libya, Franca realised that the grim reality was completely different from what she had expected. It was a dangerous place, especially for women.

When Ifeoma’s business in Nigeria failed and she got into debt, her husband kicked her out of her home. She was in a desperate situation, but then she met a woman who told her she could take her to Libya to work as a housemaid. Ifeoma saw this as a chance to earn money to pay off her debts. But the journey was not as she had expected.

At home in Nigeria, Caroline worked as house help. She had grown up an orphan, but after a fight in the village, she fled what little family remained to her. In town, she met a man who told her his sister had a supermarket in Europe and could arrange a good job for her there.

Three Nigerian men in a centre for migrants in Italy share their stories with each other. From different backgrounds and circumstances, they all travelled to Europe along the same route: through the Sahara desert to the Libyan coast, then across the Mediterranean.

“Then she took me to another place where my panties, some hair from my armpit and hair from my private parts were collected. She said it is to prevent me running away. If I ran away, they would use those items to invoke madness on me.” Janet from Nigeria was promised a job in South Africa. She ended up as prostitute in Europe, forced to work in the streets believing that she was under a magic spell preventing her from fleeing. Watch her story!