At home in Nigeria, Caroline worked as house help under miserable conditions. 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 became her boyfriend. He told her his sister had a supermarket in Europe and could arrange a good job for her there. He would help her to get there. She agreed.
“Shortly after we started the journey, he passed me on to a woman to take me there. As we reached Libya, she then handed me over to a man there. He bought me from the woman and now I had to pay him the money back.”
Caroline was exploited, mistreated and exposed to sexual violence, and as a consequence she got pregnant. Sadly on a boat crossing the Mediterranean, she had a miscarriage.
Caroline had fallen into a trap. Like so many other Nigerian women desperate for a better life, she believed the story of a decent paying job awaiting her in Europe. Instead, she was trafficked to Libya, kidnapped and forced into prostitution.
She protested that she did not owe any money to anyone, but to no avail. She was taken to a brothel in Tripoli, where she was brutally mistreated and forced to pay off her ‘debt’ by having sex with men. If she refused, she was beaten.
One day, the place where Caroline was enslaved was attacked by armed men. She and others were taken away and detained in prison. But prison was no improvement. On the contrary, she had gone from the frying pan into the fire. In prison, the women were horribly abused every day.
“They treated us like animals. We were nothing. They would beat us night and day and rape us. We would get no food, no water, nothing.”
It was hell on earth. Caroline witnessed women and children dying from abuse and neglect. Women became pregnant and gave birth in the prison. After six months in this terrible place, she managed to escape alongside other prisoners only to be quickly re-captured by another armed group. Again, she was imprisoned and severely beaten, abused and raped. In this godforsaken place, she became pregnant.
For a second time, Caroline escaped and this time she was lucky enough to join a group boarding a boat to cross the sea to Europe. But this hopeful chance quickly became another nightmarish ordeal. The overloaded boat began to take on water, while the passengers desperately bailed to prevent sinking. There was no space for movement; people were literally sitting on top of each other. For Caroline, the physical strain was too much. In the midst of her journey, she miscarried. When they were finally rescued after 15 hours at sea, she was in very bad condition. Now in a reception centre in Italy, she summarizes her experiences this way:
“I didn’t know they were going to take me to Libya. I thought I was heading to a supermarket for work, not Libya. They kidnapped me and exploited me. I paid them twice, with money and my body. If I knew what the situation would be, I wouldn’t have come.”