Joy’s family was very poor so at 10, her family sold her to a man in Lagos who kept her as a domestic slave. When she was 15, the man suddenly disappeared and Joy ended up homeless in Lagos where she was an easy target for human traffickers.

She fell in love with a man she met and lived with him for a year. This man then arranged for work for her in Mali. However when they arrived there, she discovered that he was in fact a fraud; that she sold her to a trafficker for 1000 euro.

“When we got to Mali,” says Joy. “I was surprised he sold me to somebody in Mali”.

Joy’s trafficker forced her to the long journey through the desert so she could be sold in Morocco before going to Europe to make money in prostitution for him. She travelled with the group of men and women led by the man who had bought them.

“When we passed through the desert, we faced so many difficulties. They can just beat you; they can do you anything they want, because you don’t have anybody that you can go to. The only thing is to go back to their system. What they ask you to do you’ll do it in order not to have any problem. Every time I cry. 

“What kind of life is this? But I’m already inside. I can’t go back. We eat once a day. We eat maybe from 7 to 8 in the evening. After you eat, that time till the next day in the night again before you can eat. I pray to God for forgiveness and to help me out of this situation.

“The difficulties I have seen in the desert. So many friends I’ve met. So many friends have died. There’s a girl I know. When we were going together in the desert, this girl was my good friend. And she was pregnant. And because of this no good living. There’s no good food, no good treatment. She didn’t have any treatment.

“Sometimes, one day, she didn’t even eat anything. And in her stomach there’s a baby. Every time she got sick. It was at the end of the day when she want to deliver the baby she didn’t survive it because there was no good treatment. So she died”.

Joy was trafficked to Morocco then Spain before she ended in Copenhagen, Denmark where the Airport Police arrested and imprisoned her for fraud after admitting she used another person’s document. She spent two months in jail. She was deported back to Lagos, Nigeria.

Arriving in Nigeria, she was detained for four hours, but was able to negotiate her release by paying the authorities 100 euro that she had received from the Danish authority.

“I am in Nigeria now,” she narrates. “It is very terrible, very difficult. When I was in prison in Denmark, I think it’s better than here in Nigeria moving in the street doing nothing. It’s a very difficult place. There’s no help – nothing. You can’t even walk in the day. Someone would hold you and rob you or even kill you. No job to do”.

Joy finally found shelter at the redeemed Christian Church of God on the recommendation that the Church could offer help. The pastor prayed for her as she began a new life. But Joy didn’t realize that the Church wanted funding in order for her to stay with them. 

Joy’s last hope is the dream of finding her family.

The CNN crew then followed her to Benin. Meanwhile the Benin women in Denmark had told Mildwater that she could only understand their plight after visiting Benin City in Nigeria.

The narrator implied that everyone in the community knows the kind of job young women do in Europe. And that going to Europe is a kind of social status. The community believes it’s like a curse to go to Europe and come back without lots of money.

The community will then put pressure on you to go back for the money, irrespective of how you get it. Women often sign contracts with the sponsors who would collect their money by all means possible.

Within ten minutes in a village in Benin, Mildwater was approached by mothers who offered their children to her. “He’s already free for you,” says one woman who had already given her child. In all, Mildwater was offered four children.

These women say their children do not go to school because of lack of facilities. However, they want them to go to school but not in Nigeria or Africa, because according to them, the suffering is too much.

Copyright 2008                     mysmallvoice@yahoo.com

Robot  Villager

# 1 At 10, Joy’s...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 26.03.2008 23:42

SOC Okenwa  Villager

# 2 Hakeem, There are a million and one Joys in Nigeria and elsewhere around the world whose 'ugly' stories could equally be told someday by someone if not them themselves. Nigeria is a decaying society queuing up as it were for the worst scenario! May God help us all because by the time the implosion happens not even the filthy billionaires and millionaires shall be safe. Everyone will be consumed together in the suffocating hell that we call home. Stay blessed! Posted by SOC Okenwa| 27.03.2008 05:56

Trojan Horse  JJC

# 3 I watched this program and it's nothing but a fraud.One of those efforts of the western media to always portray Nigeria as a hell hole.Given that there is a high level of poverty in the country,it is not as bad as Joy claimed.Joy claimed that you can not even walk on the street of Lagos.Haba! This is cheap journalism.Moreover,the claim that the victim,Joy,is a Nigerian is suspect.I watched the program and her version of 'broken' English does not tally with that of any of the regions in Nigeria.I can confidently say this because I've lived in all the 6 geopolitical zones of the country.Her accent is more of a Liberian/Sierra Leonan. As a Lagosian presently lives in Benin City,I am aware that the human trafficking trade is still on.What have actually changed is the mode of operation.A large percentage of ladies that are going into prostitution in Europe now are not forced into it.It is something that they are aware of before leaving the country.Issues always arise when they are supposed to pay back their sponsors. Posted by Trojan Horse| 27.03.2008 14:56

fxo  Villager

# 4 =Trojan Horse;4294999635>.Issues always arise when they are supposed to pay back their sponsors. So according to you, * the girls have no case. *All is well in Nigeria. *People are not desperate to escape from Nigeria, even into hell. Posted by fxo| 27.03.2008 22:26

Mikolo  JJC

# 5 Well, wetin man go talk again. I watched the story but felt it was fraud too. You find people like Joy in Denmark now because business is getting bad in Netherland, Italy and Spain. We should not be suprise to meet Joy on the street of Denmark tomorrow. I think it was a story misrepresented, Eki Igbenedion should tell us what she did with the money she got with her Idia renaissance project for girls like Joy! Posted by Mikolo| 28.03.2008 06:15