In slavery

In Russia girls will experience hell: up to 20 clients per day and a $45,000 debt to a pimp. Very few manage to escape. This is a simple but terrifying story about those who were lucky to get their freedom back.

Nigerian girls were rescued by a charity organisation. The organisation provided an accommodation in a dormitory and paid for the girls’ new passports. The majority of Nigerians who unwillingly become prostitutes in Russia don't know the local language and are afraid to go to the police. The only way for them to survive and don't starve to death is to submit and do whatever their pimp orders. I met Blessing and other rescued girls several days before their departure to Nigeria. Blessing is already at home with her family.

The first girl I spoke with is called Juliet. She is from Benin City, Edo State. According to Juliet, her neighbour who was later revealed to be working for a gang, suggested to Juliet’s parents to send their daughter to study Economics at a Russian university. "I’d just finished school and my parents agreed to send me to Russia after they had been convinced by a neighbour that it would be best for me. The neighbour helped to get a student visa for me. When we landed at Moscow airport, her friend met us and took me to Voronezh, 543 km away from Moscow. In Voronezh, the neighbour told me I owe her $45,000, being what she spent on me and I must become a prostitute so as to make money to pay off the debt. She took away all my money and passport and with life being so difficult for me, I had to join in the sex trade because the woman and her friends were beating me everyday for disobeying them".

A young Nigerian prostitute in Russia who identified herself as Blessing, has narrated how she was beaten by Russian clients to force her to have sex with them. Blessing disclosed that she had always been beaten by her pimp any time she refused to have sex with a client. Blessing, “Who told you there was other work for you here in Russia? Prostitution is your only option. My future pimp told me on the first day of arrival. My friend from Nigeria, who brought me to Russia, suddenly disappeared. Later I found out that she had died. I was told I owed money for airline tickets and other expenses – $45,000 in total – and I had to pay it off. I refused. Then they started beating me. See here, it has been 18 months since then, but the marks are still there. It will never go".

Girls say they usually are being beaten till they accept to serve customers. Should any girl refuse, she is thrown to the street without money and documents. Since they have nowhere to go, lots of them submit to their destiny and leave all attempts to escape back home. Blessing: “I was told I was going to be killed should I refuse to work. I had to be a baby sitter, a cleaner, a prostitute and still I owed 45,000 USD to my pimp. I didn’t like to do it. Why I had been promised education but instead I had to become a prostitute? If I wanted to be a prostitute, I could do it in my home country".

Blessing kept posting on Facebook when she lived in Russia. But she managed to escape only two years later.

Through the volunteers help, Blessing was able to get a new passport at the Federal Migration Service after she agreed to be deported to Nigeria. “I’m afraid to come back home as my pimp called my mother and said I owed them a lot of money”. Blessing disclosed several days before she came back to Nigeria.

Narrating how she was forced into prostitution in Russia, Blessing, 23, who spent two years in Russia as a prostitute, disclosed that she was deceived by her best friend who took her to Russia on the promise of securing a good job. “I had to leave school as my family is very poor. My father works as a driver, and my mother sells in the market. I put my braiding skills into practice to earn some money, but I still wanted to get an education. My best friend told me about an opportunity to study for free in Russia. However, when I arrived, my friend sold me to a Russian woman and her Nigerian companion. They used to beat me and leave me outside without clothes to freeze when I refused to serve clients. I even begged my clients to help me, but they did nothing. When my father found out about my sex slavery in Russia, he said I should blame myself for becoming a prostitute”.

These are new documents for Blessing. Now she has the right to go home. Blessing, "I am very nervous. Even now as we speak the pimp is calling to my mom and asking for money. I am afraid of these people".

I have been studying in Nigeria, but one time I had to leave everything, just because I ran out of money. My friend told me she had a very good highly paid job in Russia. I came to her to Tula but there was no job for me there. After 3 months she told me I had to sleep with men for money. She took my documents. I argued with her and ran away. But I had to live somehow and I became a prostitute. I am an accountant, you know. There were a lot of black people in the streets of Tula but I never communicated with anyone. I was contacting my friends in Nigeria via Facebook, but they couldn’t help me out.

I was being beaten here; I was always being scared. Scared of going to the police because my passport was taken from me. Policemen are perfectly aware of everything. I was crying a lot without any hope to escape.

It is a routine for them to do fingerprinting after every police raid. All the paper work for voluntary deportation including the court procedure takes up to 3 weeks. But this is only in Moscow and with the help of charity organisations. Girls say in the regions it can take years should they try to do it on their own. Without the Russian language, without documents and passports, girls from Nigeria have no other choice but to become prostitutes and save their lives.

Blessing, "Sometimes clients can beat you or even kick downstairs. You can’t do anything. They will kill you or cripple – your family won't ever see you again. But now they can’t force me anymore. I would rather die".

Almost 2 weeks of freedom in Russia the girls spent in the Russian Orthodox Church shelter. Within this time staff of the International Migration Organisation and volunteers have recovered their documents, paid all penalties and purchased new tickets back home for girls.

Preshes, "I couldn’t have imagined what I was going to work as. We are Christians, I am coming from a faithful family. My mom begged me not to do it and come back to Nigeria. I had to respect both her and God. But she truly did not understand how serious my situation was here and that I really had no one to help me".

It was the first trip in my life. Blessing, "I don’t want to travel any more. Even if someone calls me and tells me he wants to make me happy, I will reply – make your family happy first, but I will stay. I no longer want any trouble. Going back home means going back. I don’t want to go anywhere anymore".

The staff of the International Migration Organisation says Nigerian girls take care how they look like. They are taking big suitcases of clothes back home. It is kind of a shame to come back from abroad without gifts and empty handed.

And that's it. The last time I met with the girls at the airport, and then their track was lost. They don’t respond to my messages, however, judging by their posts on social networks, everyone safely returned to their home country.