Blessing was only six when her mother arranged for her to be an unpaid housemaid for a family in Abuja, on the promise they would put her through school.

In her home town in south-west Nigeria, her mother had trouble making enough money to feed her three children. When Blessing arrived in Abuja, instead of going to school, the family worked her round-the-clock, beat her with electric wire if she forgot chores and fed her rotten leftovers.

When her mother moved to the city to be closer to her daughter, Blessing was unable to be alone with her when she visited.

“They would tell me my mother was coming, I should not tell her what was happening to me, I should not say anything,” she says of the family.

“If she asks me how am I doing I should say I am fine, they said.”

As the world marks 400 years since the first recorded African slaves arrived in North America, slavery remains a modern-day scourge. Over 40 million people are estimated to be trapped in forced labour, forced marriages or other forms of sexual exploitation, according to the United Nations.

Blessing, now 11, is one such victim. She was rescued in 2016 by the Women Trafficking and Child Labour Eradication Foundation (WOTCLEF), an anti-human trafficking group, after two years of isolation and abuse. She is still under the care of WOTCLEF, which gave consent for her to be interviewed.

Africa has the highest prevalence of slavery, with more than seven victims for every 1,000 people, according to a 2017 report by human rights group Walk Free Foundation and the International Labour Office. The report defines slavery as “situations of exploitation a person cannot refuse or leave because of threats, violence, coercion, deception, and/or abuse of power.”

Trafficking of sex workers, many tricked into thinking they will get employment doing something else, is one of the most widespread and abusive forms of modern-day slavery.

The experiences of Claudia Osadolor and Progress Omovhie show how poverty increases women’s vulnerability to exploitation.

After Osadolor’s family in Benin City in southern Nigeria hit hard times, she dropped out of university and headed to Russia after a cousin told her about someone who could help her get work there, with travel expenses paid. She left Nigeria with three other girls she did not know in June 2012. When she got to Russia a “madam” came to pick her up.

Osadolor, now 28, says she was forced into prostitution and suffered internal injuries after being made to sleep with up to 20 men a day. She was trapped for three years, with the madam coming every two weeks to take almost all of her money.

She cries as she recounts the trauma and her relief at escaping thanks to a chance meeting with a representative of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) at a metro station.

“I feel I paid the ultimate price for my family,” she says. “But I thank God I came back alive.”

Osadolor has been able to reintegrate into society after training as a tailor in Benin with the support of Nigerian charity Pathfinders Justice Initiative.

Omovhie (33) was also enslaved after leaving Nigeria in 2015 in search of work. She paid an agent 700,000 naira (1,881 pounds) – money she borrowed – to smuggle her on a journey across the Sahara desert to Libya, hoping eventually to go to Europe.

The intended final destination of people smuggled across Africa is often Europe, but few make it. Many are jailed or sold as indentured labourers when they get to Libya. Some are sold on slave markets, according to aid groups – a chilling echo of the trans-Saharan slave trade of centuries past.

Once in Libya, Omovhie worked long hours as a cleaner for a well-off Arab family in Tripoli, often on an empty stomach.

“I worked three months and they did not pay me,” she said.

Another agent promised to help Omovhie escape by sending her to Italy, but she was rounded up by police on the Libyan coast and detained for six months. She returned to Nigeria in July under a state programme to help refugees and migrants. It has helped over 14,000 Nigerians return home since 2017.

Blessing and Claudia Osadolor are pseudonyms to protect their anonymity.





