{UAH} LOADS OF BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES IN ITALY
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Escaping the sex trade: the stories of Nigerian women lured to Italy - in pictures
Spanish photographer Quintina Valero's striking visual record of the work being done by an NGO, Piam Onlus, to help victims of sex trafficking in Asti, near Turin. "What I found was a really strong community of women who were helping each other overcome their experiences," she says.
• Trafficked to Turin: the trade in Nigerian women, and the victims fighting back
Princess Inyang Okokon, a former victim of sex trafficking, in a coffee shop in Asti. When she arrived in Turin in 1999, lured by the promise of work as a chef, traffickers demanded €45,000 to pay for the journey. She was forced into prostitution, but after eight months managed to pay off her debt with the help of a priest and Alberto Mossino, an Italian who would become her husband. In 1999 Alberto set up the NGO Piam Onlus to help migrants and women involved in trafficking in Italy: Princess came on board later. Since then, they have helped more than 200 women come out of prostitution.
Loveth, 21, in a shelter for victims of sex trafficking in Italy. Loveth had been forced into prostitution for four years in Libya after being raped by her traffickers. She was 17 when she left Nigeria. A madam had offered her work as a childminder in Europe. "Before they took me to Libya they used two boys to break my virginity and then in Libya they took me to a house and sent many men to sleep with me."
Precious, a 20-year-old Nigerian woman, in a bar in Asti, near Turin. In December 2014, six months after being rescued from the sea, she was granted a two-year humanitarian visa. She has also entered a protection programme. The SPRAR programme (System of Protection for Asylum Seekers and Refugees) was set up by the Italian government in 2002 and involves helping them to get accommodation, food, work, education and integrate themselves into Italian society. Precious now lives in an apartment, which she shares with four other victims of trafficking, and works in a shop in Asti.
Gift is welcomed to the shelter in Asti by Princess (far right) and her daughter Maria. She was removed by traffickers from the reception centre in Sicily soon after arriving in Italy from Nigeria (by boat). She managed to escape, reporting her madam and traffickers to the authorities, but even today her family back home get pressure about the debt. She will share the house with Patience (in red dress), a 30-year-old Nigerian woman who was sold by her friend to traffickers. Her friend had offered her a "good job" in Europe and the opportunity to provide money for her family and child.
Princess has helped to create a largely female community in Asti. This picture is of Gift, Loveth and Precious, all former victims of trafficking, having fun at the Christmas fair.
Victims of sex trafficking feel under immense pressure to protect their families back in Nigeria and superstition is a powerful tool for traffickers. The traffickers threaten victims with curses to procure their silence and cooperation. Victims have to pay off debts of between €45,000 and €60,000 for their travel arrangements. Before the women leave Nigeria, they have to swear to the gods that if they don't pay back the debt for their journey something terrible will happen to them or their family.
A Nigerian prostitute is given condoms by Princess. Once a week she drives with Mossino to the outskirts of Asti to meet prostitutes who are working on the road. She informs them of their rights and protection programmes available to them. She gives them information about the NGO and offers them help if they decide to leave the streets.
Success has recently reported her traffickers to the authorities after working as a prostitute in Asti for three years. Every month she had to give €200 to Jennifer, her madam, as rent for her space in the street, €250 as rent for the house where she slept – in the kitchen – and about €50 per week for groceries. "For other expenses such as electricity and gas, she asked me for about €300 per month. All that remained was to fill my debt of €50,000." In December 2013 she felt sick, called an ambulance, and discovered in hospital that she was four months pregnant.
Sandra, a 21-year-old Nigerian woman washes her three-year-old son Destiny in a shelter in Monale, near Turin, which she shares with other victims of trafficking. Sandra is from Benin city in southern Nigeria. She left Nigeria when she was 18, and two months pregnant, because her family were very poor. A woman had offered her work abroad in a supermarket, but as soon as she arrived in Italy the woman she had travelled with took her to a forest, made her change her clothes and tried to force her work as a prostitute. Sandra refused and eventually a client helped her to escape.
Gwokto La'Kitgum
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