Tied to prostitution by a voodoo rite with alcohol and chicken liver: “You will die if you don't pay your debt”

The proposal came from distant and long-awaited Europe. “We can bring you to take care of a child and also to prostitute yourself, and you will have to pay all your debt,” some compatriots living in Spain told her. 20,000 euros. She would never have thought of dedicating herself to that, but what she had around her left no room for hope. Her economic situation in Nigeria was desperate and she also had a stormy relationship with her father and his new wife. One day in July 2016, before beginning her dangerous journey to Spain, two women celebrated a voodoo rite with which they made her believe that she was hopelessly linked to the compatriots who were going to welcome her in the new destination of she. “You will die if you do not pay your debt,” they warned him. And under that threat she was subjected for more than a year to a marriage that sexually enslaved her in brothels and polygons.

In that witchcraft ceremony, the woman had to eat chicken liver and drink alcohol and made a firm commitment to make her payments. In addition to making him fear for her own life, she also reminded him that she was in danger of the family she was leaving behind in Nigeria. With this backpack on her back, she set off on her way. She passed through Agádez (Niger), a UNESCO heritage city, and arrived in Tripoli (Libya), where she stayed for two months. There, they put her on a boat with 200 people and she arrived in Sicily (Italy). An accomplice of her marriage in Spain took her to Milan and then brought her to Getafe (Madrid) by car. It was December 2016. At that time, her debt had already amounted to 25,000 euros and she would also be charged 220 euros per month in child support. The woman became her captor, a shadow that did not leave her side or let her leave the house. The man began to offer it to different clubs.

The testimony that this woman offered to justice shows the detail of a reality that seems invisible, despite the fact that it happens on the streets and shines with the lights of roadside brothels. The victim, who is a protected witness, was even sent to hostess places in other parts of Spain, but the lack of documentation meant that none of these possibilities were forged. Although she even traveled by bus to Ponferrada (León). The delay in accepting the asylum request made the exploiters opt for another means of profit: the street. Thus, they sent her under the supervision of another woman to the corners of the Villaverde industrial estate, in Madrid. From seven in the afternoon to ten in the morning. Every Monday she had to deliver her collection and, while she was at the polygon, Sandra called her every hour to check on her.

Until in September 2017, the woman saw the possibility of escaping. Ironically, she did it when her captor had left home to go to church. In those nine months of activity, the woman had given 4,200 euros to her exploiters. She had written down all of her accounts meticulously in a notebook with the logo of a rum brand. When the police entered the couple's house, they found cards from a Salamanca hostess club and other personal belongings of the woman, such as a piece of paper with the address of her family in Nigeria. According to them, the woman ran away from her to avoid paying the rent for the room where she slept. They claimed that she was treated like one of her family and that she practiced prostitution “freely.”

The investigation by the Madrid Provincial Immigration Brigade concluded, however, that Sandra, the woman, was the one who controlled everything and gave the orders. “In cases of trafficking in Nigerian women, it is common for women to take the lead,” says a police source who is an expert in this matter. The audios extracted from the couple's cell phones left no room for doubt. In one from January 2018, the woman spoke about punishments for another victim who refused to prostitute herself. In another, a man tells his husband: “You are upset because you are bringing girls to Europe, I will tell everything you and your wife do to the police.” It was also Sandra who told this woman that she was going to remain locked up because she did not have proper documentation and she wrote in a notebook the story that she had to tell when she went to the asylum office. It was also she who forced her to practice a new voodoo rite and with whom she spoke during the trip from Nigeria to Spain.

The Provincial Court of Madrid sentenced both to eight years in prison for the crime of trafficking and illegal immigration, a sentence that the Superior Court has just confirmed. The beginning of the end of her nightmare came with a meeting one day at the industrial park with some mediators from the Apramp association, dedicated to combating trafficking. Many of the women who make these contact rounds have previously been victims of sexual exploitation, so they know what they are talking about. They got the woman to come to the headquarters to talk and there, with another survivor of trafficking who was also Nigerian, she told him her entire story. And she confessed to him that she believed in voodoo. For justice, the testimony of this protected witness is “firm, persistent and seamless.”

This is one of the last cases in which voodoo is a fundamental element in the domination of the victim. “Shortly thereafter, Nigerian leaders made public that they were revoking the effects of these rituals on trafficking victims. This made them practically disappear from our investigations. Now, these networks have turned to other crimes, such as document falsification and scams,” police sources point out. Indeed, in March 2018, Ewuare II, a Nigerian ruler, promulgated a decree against human trafficking and urged women not to pay debt to mafias. This news reached the victims and had an immediate effect on the use of this practice.

Witchcraft has taken a back seat in the trafficking and exploitation of women for sexual purposes, but cases like that of this protected witness reflect that the chains with which they are held do not need to be physical.

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