by ‘Jola Sotubo

A young woman has spoken out on her ordeal after she was sold, while 7 months pregnant, to a human trafficking ring.

23-year-old Jennifer Ogbonna told police in Ogun  how her own sister tricked her and sold her into slavery.

Jennifer was taken to Abeokuta, the Ogun capital, from Aba and it was there her sister received a sum of N100,000 in payment for her.

She said:

“I was brought to Abeokuta by the woman’s husband. I don’t know that they had already paid money on my head. I only got to know in Abeokuta when I overheard the woman and her husband talking about child trafficking and I felt bad. I decided not to eat any of their food.

There is one lady in that building, they call her Adeola, she would bring food for me and I would not touch it to the extent that the woman’s husband pleaded with me to eat and still I refused and said I am going back to Aba where she brought me from.

“When I said I was going to Aba, the man was angry and said before he would allow me to go back, I must pay back the N100,000 he paid my sister for myself and my pregnancy and the expenses he incurred so far on me. After that, his wife took me to one shrine and asked me to swear to an oath not to go back to Aba or tell anybody what happened, that if I try to go back or tell anybody, she will make me mad; she would make me deaf and dumb.

“But, I discussed my plan to escape with another victim who I met there, she is Oluchi and she said that if I try it I will become mad, but I insisted and I escaped. I ran away to the next street. When I ran to the street, I met some people and I narrated my experience to them. They advised me to report to the Police, that was how police got to know everything, she stated.

The couple in charge of the baby factory where Jennifer was taken, identified as Ismail and Muyiba Yusuf, were said to have worked jointly to get victims with the former using fetish means to capture pregnant women from far and wide.

Muyiba was arrested by the police in Abeokuta but she claims that the pregnant women were all brought to her by their husbands.