Janet had fled from her village in Nigeria when she was 12 because her stepmother treated her badly. To survive, she did odd jobs on farms but later moved to town where she worked as a nanny. One day she met a woman who promised her a good job in South Africa on condition that she undergo a black magic ceremony to prevent her from running away from the workplace. Janet thought this would be the solution to her difficult life situation and agreed.
“I thought it was a good job, so I agreed, thinking it would be much better than my current state. 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 was to prevent me running away. If I ran away, they would use those items to invoke madness on me.”
Then Janet was sent off on her journey. The smugglers took her through Niger and the Libyan desert. Having no knowledge of geography, Janet didn’t realise until she had reached Libya that she was being taken to Europe and not South Africa. The journey through the desert was horrifying. There were dead bodies along the road. Their party was ambushed by bandits who demanded money. When they could not pay, Janet and her female companions were raped. Later they were badly beaten by some of the smugglers who wanted more money.
In Tripoli, they were detained by traffickers who routinely raped them. She was eventually released and taken to the seaside to wait for a passage to Europe. Many people were waiting on the beach, it was like a huge camp. Janet had heard that the sea crossing was dangerous, and she feared for her life.
“Most people that set out on the journey die at sea and you will never hear from them again. I thought to myself, is this going to be the end of my life? I decided not to go but they told me If I didn’t go, I would rot in the camp.”
The journey in a small inflatable boat was a nightmare. People were seasick and miserable, and Janet felt they were just aimlessly drifting on the sea and not getting anywhere. However, they were eventually rescued and brought to a reception centre in Sicily. There Janet got an unexpected phone call. It was a person claiming to be the sister of the woman in Nigeria who had sent her off on the journey. She told her to come to see her and Janet left the reception centre.
“When I got there, she asked if I remembered they’d collected my pants, my hair and a few other items? There is no job out there for you. I will take you to the market to get new clothes so you can start to hustle. She said there was no going back for me. The items they collected from me could be used against me to make me mad. The thought of going mad really scared me.”
Janet thought she had no alternative but to give in, especially as the woman said she owed them 30,000 euros for the journey. She started to work the streets, but after three months she could not endure it anymore and fled from the woman. She is now in Germany where she has braved her fears of the magic spell and wants to tell her story so that other vulnerable Nigerian women would not fall into the same trap.