May 1, 2021 Share
For months, human traffickers beat and drugged Blessing, hauling the 27-year-old from one gold mine encampment to the next, where each night she was forced to sleep with dozens of men for less than $2 a person.
The madam who lured Blessing to the landlocked West African nation of Burkina Faso with promises of a hair salon job, threatened to kill her if she tried to run away.
“Nobody comes to your rescue,” said Blessing, wiping tears from her cheeks during a recent interview.
In December 2019, while the madam was away, Blessing finally got the courage to escape. With the help of local residents, she and six other women left the encampment and walked to safety, ultimately ending up in a United Nations transit center for migrants in the capital city of Ouagadougou.
For months, human traffickers beat and drugged Blessing, hauling the 27-year-old from one gold mine encampment to the next, where each night she was forced to sleep with dozens of men for less than $2 a person.
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2021/04/30 14:24 A woman who said she was trafficked from Nigeria under false pretenses to work as a sex slave in Burkina Faso s mining sites, walks through a row of t. A woman who said she was trafficked from Nigeria under false pretenses to work as a sex slave in Burkina Faso s mining sites, walks through a row of tent in the Secaco mining town June 12, 2020. As part of a months-long investigation into sex trafficking and the gold mining industry, The Associated Press met with nearly 20 Nigerian women who said they had been brought to Burkina Faso under false pretenses, then forced into prostitution. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick)