A 41 years old Nigerian woman and mother of two children, Deola Atoke Omotosho, the daughter of actress Jumoke George, has shared a chilling account of how she was deceived and trafficked to Mali under the guise of a job opportunity, only to discover she had been sold into prostitution.
Deola, who was named and called Fatimowho in Mali, spoke on Talk-to-B with emotion and clarity, recounted how she had struggled academically as a child at St Loius Primary School, Orita, Ibadan and Metropolitan College, Isolo, where she finished her secondary school education, and chose to pursue a career in auxiliary nursing.
After training at Merit Hospital, Agbado, Lagos, she worked in various informal healthcare roles, including caregiving and assisting in pharmacies.
Her ordeal began when a younger lady she identified as Blessing Anu, who she had helped at one time or the other by way of accommodating and feeding her in Lagos claiming to have a friend in Mali looking for someone to manage a pharmacy store.
Believing it was a promising opportunity, Deola agreed to travel, unaware that her journey would lead her into modern-day slavery.
She said, “I didn’t inform anybody, including my mother and children. We travelled through Cotonou, Togo, and Ghana before getting to the desert and finally reaching Bamako, the capital of Mali. It was a four-day journey.”
On arrival in Mali, Deola was shocked to learn the grim reality: she had been sold for 250,000 CFA francs to a woman known as Princess, an indigene of Esan in Benin, Edo State, Nigeria, who informed her bluntly, “You were bought to be a prostitute, and you will pay me 1.5 million CFA francs”, which will amount to about N3million.
Despite her refusal, threats of violence and intimidation followed. “I told her I would rather die than become a prostitute,” Deola said, recalling how her trafficker warned she would be killed or hypnotised into forgetting her past.
Deola explained the brutal nature of sex trafficking in Mali, where women are expected to pay off their “debt” through prostitution.
Victims, she said, are forced to sleep with up to 50 men a day, with each encounter fetching between 1,000 and 2,000 CFA francs (N3,000 to N5,000). “They told me many prostitutes had been killed in Mali. The conditions are horrible, and survival is uncertain.”
One of the prostitutes working for our madam encouraged me to make up my mind to go into prostitution telling me that very soon, “I will pay the 1.5CFR francs the woman is demanding from me. She told me she had paid up her own 1.5mCFR francs and that after the payment, her madam did graduation for her. She said she paid 50CFR francs to the woman and also gave her six different ‘Ankra cloth. Now, the money she is making is for her.”
“I begged her to help me look for any job apart from prostitution. I said I can do cleaning, and caregiver. I told her that I can be a shop attendant or a server in any shop where they are selling food. She told me that such jobs are not really available stressing that the main job for females in Mali is prostitution”, Deola stated.
She revealed that a chance encounter with a Yoruba-speaking Malian man who was born in Nigeria became her lifeline.
After confiding in him, he agreed to help her escape recounting, “He told me there were no jobs in Mali except prostitution, but he knew a village where I could work as a food shop attendant.”
With 30,000 CFA francs needed for transport and no money to her name, Deola contemplated suicide but the man lent her the fare, and in the dead of the night, she escaped the brothel.
She found refuge in a remote village and began working for a woman selling Amala, who was paying her 1,000 CFA francs daily, after agreeing on a monthly salary of 15CFa francs
According to her, gradually, she found a small community of supportive Yoruba people and started rebuilding her life adding that she eventually returned to Bamako and is now working in a food shop.
She revealed how she escaped death during a confrontation between a deadly Islamic terrorist fundamentalists, Boko Haram, and the Russian soldiers, the mercenaries Malian government employed to tackle terrorists in the country.
Deola added that Boko Haram are killing many Nigerians in Mali seeking government assistance in evacuating Nigerians, particularly, ladies forced into prostitution. “How I which I can help those those girls out of Mali but I don’t have money to help the stranded ladies”, she added.
Revealing that she bled for three months in Mali before some Nigerians took her to the hospital where she was treated, she reiterated, “In Mali, the only thriving business is prostitution. If you see a lady who comes back to Nigeria from Mali fresh, she is a prostitute.
Her story, both heartbreaking and inspiring, sheds light on the grim realities of human trafficking and the rampant exploitation of Nigerian women lured abroad under false pretenses.
“I thank God I didn’t die there,” she said. “Too many girls are dying in Mali. We need to tell this story so others don’t fall victim.”
When she was confronted of being wicked for abandoning her mother and two children for four years without looking back, she said she was ashamed to return back to Nigeria as a poor person adding, “I am not wicked. I refuse to call my mum because I didn’t have anything to give her. I didn’t also call my children because if they demand for money, I would not be able to afford. I am sorry for everything that I have done. I pray that my children will forgive me.”
She appreciated the Nigerian ambassador in Mali, whom she referred to as “My Daddy”, and the Chairperson/CEO of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), Hon Abike Dabiri-Erewa, for facilitating her return to Nigeria, saying that she did not believe that the embassy could be prompt in preparing her traveling documents and brought her back home so soon.”
