The Chairman, House Committee on Diaspora, Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, claimed about 10,000 girls from Edo State were currently languishing in Libya and Morocco prisons.

Dabiri-Erewa disclosed this when she led members of the committe on a courtesy visit to Governor Adams Oshiomhole, in Benin.

She said that the committee members who visited the girls in the two North African countries met with some of them whose ages were between 13 years and 20 years.

Dabiri-Erewa said that the girls were facing various forms of inhuman treatment and were being used as sex objects.

She added that some of them were pregnant while others had already given birth in prison.

The lawmaker urged the state government to help the girls out of their predicament, adding that it should `downplay' the reasons why they went to the two countries.

Responding, Oshiomhole, said it did not matter whether majority of the girls were indigenes of the state or not, noting that the issue of rescue was within the purview of the  Federal Government.

Oshiomhole said that the National Assembly and the Federal Government had the responsibility to appropriate funds towards ensuring that the girls were released.

He said that the insinuation that government and its agencies including National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons (NAPTIP) were handicapped in this regard was untenable. (NAN)