The trafficking of Nigerian women to Italy is at “crisis” levels, according to the UN’s migration office.
The women are being smuggled in by boats from Libya. Migrant reception centres act as virtual holding pens for them whence they eventually go “missing”, having been collected and then forced into prostitution.
Some 3,600 Nigerian women arrived in Italy by boat in the first half of this year. The number has nearly doubled compared to the same period in 2015, according to the International Office of Migration.
In 2014, about 1,500 Nigerian women arrived by sea. In 2015 this figure had increased to 5,633.
More than 80% are likely to be trafficked into prostitution in Italy and other spots in Europe, it warns.
Sex trafficking between Nigeria and Italy has been thriving for more than thirty years, but now there has been a marked increase in the numbers of unaccompanied young Nigerian women.
“Just last week six girls went missing from a reception centre in Sicily, they were just picked up in a car and driven away,” said Simona Moscarelli of the IOM.
She urged that Nigerian women should be placed in specialist shelters rather than in migrant reception centres and given advice and support to break the sexual exploitation chain.
“The women we are seeing are increasingly young, many are unaccompanied minors when they arrive and the violence and exploitation they face when they are under the control of these gangs is getting worse. They are really treated like slaves.”
Confirmation that the reception centres are increasingly being used as pick-up points was given by Salvatore Vella, deputy chief prosecutor in Agrigento, Sicily.
“The mobsters just come to the camp and pick [women] up,” he says. “As easy as going to a grocery store. That’s what these women are treated like - objects to trade, buy, exploit and resell and the reception centres are acting as a sort of warehouse where these girls are temporarily stocked.
“They wait until the woman has her residence permit or refugee status document and then they just go and pick her up.”
The women are duped into believing they will work as waitresses for good salaries which will enable them to replay their ‘debt’ of about €15,000. Instead they are forced into sexual slavery and told their debt is about €40,000.
