A 31-year-old Nigerian woman named Chioma Sabina Abaraonye has been arrested by a joint team from the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) and the police for human trafficking.
According to PM News, in Tamale, Ghana’s Northern Region, Abaraonye is accused of trafficking young Nigerian women to Ghana under the pretense of offering them jobs as salesgirls, only to force them into prostitution upon their arrival.
According to Ghanaweb.com, one of the two women she brought to Ghana, with the help of Abaraonye’s Ghanaian boyfriend, managed to escape and reported the situation to the police in Tamale. The boyfriend is now on the run.
The report details that Abaraonye smuggled the girls, aged 23 and 26, into Ghana through the Aflao border. Upon their arrival in Tamale, the victims realized they were not there to work as salesgirls but were instead forced into prostitution. One victim disclosed that Abaraonye and her boyfriend took strands of their hair, parts of their nails, and coerced them into taking an oath threatening that any attempt to reveal their ordeal to authorities would result in their deaths. “They said they are keeping the hair and nails and if we run, they will make us run mad,” the victim recounted.
The women were compelled to engage in sex work daily and were required to remit GH¢100 each day to Abaraonye. Failure to meet this quota resulted in beatings and torture. One of the victims, seeking to return to Nigeria, reported the case to escape the abuse, stating, “I can’t use my body to make money for somebody and I want her to return my phone and the hair, nails she took from me.”
E. Kofi Owusu, Assistant Commissioner of Immigration for the Northern Region, explained that the victims were forced into prostitution to repay Abaraonye for the expenses she claimed to have incurred to bring them to Ghana. Each girl was expected to repay GH¢8000.
The victims have been transported to the Ghana Immigration Headquarters in Accra, while Abaraonye, who was admitted to the Tamale Teaching Hospital after suffering a relapse, following an abortion, will be transported to Accra once discharged.
