Nigeria is a source, transit, and destination country for women and children trafficked for sexual exploitation. It starts with the promise of a better life. The parents are taken in. The children are persuaded. When they leave home they do so willingly, with some excitement, not trepidation. The trafficker has promised a good job, a schooling, a regular income. But that is not how it works out. Every year, an estimated 50,000 girls travel illegaly from Nigeria to Europe. The journey is often nightmarish, trying to reach the coast of Italy or Spain in a precarious rubber dingy. Many of the girls die of fatigue or drown at sea before reaching their destination. Those who make it, soon realize that the promised job does not exist, and they are sent onto the streest as prostitutes. Meanwhile, in Nigeria, the government and an NGO run by nuns are fighting to set these 21st Century slaves free from their masters, as well as from the naivete that makes them so vulnerable.
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