An 18-year-old Nigerian woman said that the woman who trafficked her two years ago enticed her to leave Nigeria with promises to learn to be a hairdresser. Another young woman, from Edo State, described her own experience of being told she was going to deal with fashion materials:

“She said I was going to sell clothes in a boutique in Liberia, but took me [to Côte d'Ivoire] and every night I have to do this…. Just a thousand [CFA francs, equivalent of $2] each man. I have been here for two years. I don’t like it. I want to leave.”

A copy of the  harsh experiences captured in the August 2010 Human Rights Watch report which USAfrica, USAfricaonline.com and CLASSmagazine (Houston) has notes that dozens of very young Nigerian women (some 15 years and younger) had been trafficked into the dirty and dangerous commercialization of their bodies. One of the girls said: Nigerian women and girls in central Côte d’Ivoire said that they receive 1,000 CFA francs ($2) per act, or 5,000 CFA francs ($10) for the night. “You have to work so hard,” Ruth said. “In one night, you have to have sex with 15… men. You work until the sun comes up and you cannot even open your eyes. Some of the girls are small….”

The victims-participants said that Nigerian women recruited and transported them overland through Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Burkina Faso. The majority of victims told both Human Rights Watch and the Nigerian embassy that they came from Delta and Edo States of Nigeria.

The HRW report  focuses mainly on Nigerian women and girls engaged in and being forced into prostitution in the French-speaking, neighboring west African country of Ivory Coast.

Another 27-year-old Nigerian woman trafficked for prostitution in central Côte d’Ivoire, said:

“I came here six years ago with five other girls from Delta State. The woman who brought us told me that she sold wrappers [fabric used as a skirt] in Côte d’Ivoire. I thought it was a good opportunity for me to learn a business, so I left Nigeria and went with her. The second day after we arrived, she handed us each a condom and I thought, What is this? She said, ‘This is what you are going to do.’ What could I do? I had nobody backing me … so I did it.”

The report points out that within days of arrival in Côte d’Ivoire, the traffickers demanded that the women and girls engage in prostitution to pay off an exorbitant “debt” of generally 1.5 to 2 million CFA francs (worth only US$3,000 to $4,000); despite the fact that the far end cost of overland transportation to Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) is only roughly 100,000 CFA ($200).

Such abuse and manipulation amounts to debt bondage, a practice similar to slavery under the 1956 United Nations Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery. Nigeria’s government has been involved in the fight against these crimes and the HRW report expects more from Nigeria,  Côte d’Ivoire and the west African countries group ECOWAS.