10,000 Nigerian Girls Forced Into Prostitution In Burkina Faso – Ambassador

“The spate of human trafficking here in Burkina Faso is a big concern to the Embassy because at present, we have nothing less than 10,00 Nigerian girls who have been trafficked into Burkina Faso as commercial sex workers”.

“And most of these girls are underage; most left schools and are roaming about doing commercial sex work in Burkina Faso”.

“This, apart from been a dent to our country, its also a sort of concern as far as their health is concerned. This is very serious to us and most of the girls who want to go back as a result of this voluntary repatriation do so because they were tricked, they did not know the condition there are going to found themselves here”.

“For every Nigerian girl that escapes and wants to go back, there are more than 10 in the bush that are willing to carry on,”

“Two hundred girls have been repatriated to Nigeria by the embassy, this is apart from the ones that ran to the churches, some to other civil society Organisations (CSOs) and the IOM”.

“In fact, the IOM is complaining to the embassy that most of the money meant for West Africa is used to repatriate Nigerian girls back home and they are complaining that with time, they would not be able to cope with the number”.

“So, if the embassy alone have repatriated 200 girls, you can imagine how many girls the IOM has repatriated and the reason they are complaining,”

“I am pleading with Nigerian parents that they should know what their children are doing”.

“Most of the girls said that their parents don’t know that they are here and some will tell us that their parents know, and some will say that they were sent by either their father, mother or uncle”.

“This is a problem that emanates from the family. For the girls, I wish to tell them that anybody they see that comes to tell them that he is taking them to somewhere to either be employed as hair dressers or work in the shop, that they should know that they are human traffickers”.

“Anybody that will tell them not work in Nigeria, but to move outside is simply a human trafficker and they should be weary of such persons”,