HOW can a woman with female children allow this kind of thing to be done to another person’s child?” This is the question being asked by many residents of Udu Local Government Area in Delta State when they heard of how human traffickers took Ejiro to Côte d’Ivoire, carried out crude surgery in her womb and removed her fallopian tubes.

What were their thoughts when the surgery was being held? To make her yield to the undesired job being forced on her? To render her childless for life as a punishment for refusing their proposal? To make it impossible for her to get pregnant?

These are the issues being investigated by detectives in the Delta State Police Command after the arrest of two women, Blessing and Esther, allegedly involved in trafficking Ejiro to Côte d’Ivoire.

The Delta Command’s Public Relations Officer, SP Bright Edafe, who confirmed the arrest of the two suspected human traffickers, told the bizarre and pathetic story of how Ejiro, the 19-year-old lady from Udu Local Government Area, was approached by her father’s female friend who offered to help her go abroad to start a job.

Though not told the type of job, Ejiro, who believed that Blessing was also a mother and her friend who would not wish her evil, accepted the offer with an open, innocent mind, looking forward to the prospect of becoming financially strong and being proud of going to another country.

However, she was shocked when she got to Côte d’Ivoire and discovered that she was brought to engage in prostitution.

According to the PPRO, the teenager refused the job and asked to be returned to Nigeria. However, the traffickers told her they had no money to give her for her return home. Ejiro called the person who facilitated the journey, but she also told her she had no money.

“Along the line, she was given something and fell unconscious. When she told them she was sick, they took her to a place that claimed to be a hospital and injected her until she lost consciousness. On waking up, she saw her stomach plastered. She didn’t know what had happened to her,” Edafe said.

Further investigation by Sunday Tribune revealed that Ejiro’s father and mother are divorced, while Ejiro’s father and Blessing are distant friends. Blessing reportedly handed over Ejiro to a lady who is Warri-based and currently at large. That one also handed her over to another suspect in Lagos State, who took Ejiro to Côte d’Ivoire. All of the syndicate members, according to information gathered, are females.

It was learnt that there is a lady in Côte d’Ivoire who is called Iron Man. She was said to be the one Ejiro was handed over to, and it was discovered during interrogation there are many girls engaged in prostitution who are still with her.

Ejiro was said to have stayed in Côte d’Ivoire for over a year, after which her fallopian tubes were removed.

It was gathered that she was put in a vehicle to return to Lagos State, Nigeria, after Iron Man and others noticed that she was not too strong after the forced surgery. On getting to Lagos, she was said to have been roaming around when she was noticed by a man who asked her questions. When she told her story, the man, who was initially afraid because of cases of people who died on the way during such help, summoned courage and took her to Warri, from where she located her family and explained things to them.

While the hospital where she was taken remains unknown to Ejiro, on her arrival in Delta State, she was taken to a government hospital in Ughelli, with the hospital bill paid by the Ministry of Women Affairs. It was at the hospital that doctors discovered that her fallopian tubes had been removed by the human traffickers.

She was taken to the police station to report, following which the two arrests were made.

Ejiro narrated her experience: “I knew the woman who proposed a job abroad to me through my father. But when I got to Côte d’Ivoire, I saw that I was brought to practise commercial sex work. I told them I wanted to return home, but they said they had no transport fare to give me. I called my father’s friend, who handed me over to the other person but she replied that I should remain there as she had no money to give me. I didn’t know when I fell unconscious. I just woke up and found my stomach plastered.”

The father’s friend, Blessing, in her statement, admitted knowing Ejiro. She said: “She’s my girl. I knew her through my friend. My friend, Esther, told me that I should help her travel. So I asked Ejiro if she would like to travel, and she said ‘yes.’

“I was given N400,000 for the girl to travel,” adding that it was her first time of engaging in human trafficking.

When the suspect, who said she’s a mother to make and female genders, with the oldest female being 18 years old, was asked why she did not take her daughter abroad for prostitution, she gave no answer. She only said she’s not happy with what had been done to Ejiro.

The second suspect, who gave her name as Esther, told the police that she got N150,000 as part of the human trafficking syndicate.

The PPRO said that investigation still continues as the police search for the two suspects at large. (Sunday Tribune)