At least 10 underaged Nigerian girls have been filmed narrating how they have been trafficked to Ghana for prostitution.
A video clip uploaded on X on Friday, showed the girls inside a room being interrogated by an unidentified man.
The girls were aged between 15 and 18 years old, they stated in the clip.
Seven of the girls said they hail from Imo State, South-east Nigeria while three of them said they are from Jos in Plateau State, North-central Nigeria.
The girls have spent between one and two months in the West African country.
The girls, three of which are siblings, said a brother to one of them trafficked them to Ghana and that their mobile phones were seized on arrival into the country.
Asked what they do, one of the girls responded: “Prostitute work.”
“They pay you (for prostitution)?” the unidentified man further probed.
“No. They don’t pay us. Any money you make (from prostitution), they take it,” the girl replied.
The man condemned the development, saying the children in that age bracket ought to be in school, not prostitution.
‘They pay me 200 cedis daily’
In another video clip uploaded on the same X handle, the suspected trafficker admitted trafficking the girls to the country.
The unidentified trafficker, who is a Nigerian, said he received 200 Ghana Cedis daily as proceeds from the girls’ prostitution.
The amount is about N20,000 or $14, according to the current exchange rate.
It is not clear if the 200 Ghana Cedis is the daily value received for each or all of the girls.
He claimed the girls told him that they were up to 20 years old.
Arrest
The Chairperson of the Nigerians in the Diaspora Organisation, Callistus Elozieuwa, was seen in another clip, saying the suspect has been arrested.
“We got a tip-off yesterday that one Nigerian guy brought these ladies here, beat them up, maltreated them and sent them for prostitution. So, we sent our rescue team to go for the girls.
“We went there this morning, fortunately we were able to get all of them from the guy’s room. And we were able to apprehend the guy. He’s in police custody here,” Mr Elozieuwa said.
‘We’ll take custody of the girls’
The spokesperson of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, Zachariah Duada, told PREMIUM TIMES on Friday night that the agency was already working to take custody of the girls.
Prohibited in Nigeria
Nigeria in 2015 enacted the Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Enforcement and Administration Act which outlawed all acts of human trafficking in the country.
The Act prescribes a minimum penalty of between five and 10 years imprisonment and a fine of N1 million for the trafficking of children, depending on the purpose of such trafficking.
Several persons have been convicted of child trafficking across the country.
The Kano State High Court, in July 2021, sentenced a man, Paul Owne, to 91 years in prison for kidnapping and trafficking of children in the state for sale in Onitsha, Anambra State.
A Federal High Court in Port-Harcourt, River State, in 2019, sentenced three persons to a combined 12 years imprisonment for trafficking a two-year-old male child and one other child.
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